A Gathering of Heroes
by Oreochema
Summary: "Please forgive me if I don't take you seriously, Mr. Baron, but I've faced much, much worse than you. I've fought ancient kings and their hellish minions; I've been shot to death by mercenaries, and resurrected by a freaky gemstone; I've been cut open and studied; I've been experimented on; and I've been tortured nearly to death… multiple times. You don't intimidate me."
1. Losing Our Touch?

Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.

WARNING: THIS STORY IS A SEQUEL TO MY PREVIOUS FANFIC, TO SAVE THE WORLD WITH A SECRET! THIS STORY WILL REFERENCE EVENTS FROM TO SAVE THE WORLD WITH A SECRET, SO IF YOU WANT THE DOWN-LOW ON WHAT'S GOING ON, I SUGGEST READING THAT ONE FIRST!

ENJOY! :D

A Gathering of Heroes

CHAPTER 1: Losing Our Touch?

Kim and Ron lay concealed in a ventilation shaft, shivering with cold as the subzero air from outside made its way into the tiny enclosure; Drakken's new Himalayan mountain base was more than cold enough for the two of them, but they were monitoring the villain's progress on his new "evil masterpiece" and didn't want to move inside until they were sure they were ready and that they wouldn't be spotted.

Drakken hadn't attempted anything evil or "take-over-the-world-oriented" since six months before the Walter Baron incident; that made it a year and a half since his most recent attempt at global conquest, and common sense dictated that, since it had been so long, he would be planning something big.

Kim scanned the main chamber again. Shego, like Drakken, was nowhere to be seen at the moment, but that didn't mean she wasn't around; Kim knew that the super-powered villainess was probably monitoring the room from a place where she couldn't be visibly detected. She pulled the Kimmunicator out of her pocket and pressed the call button; the almost-silent click sounded incredibly loud in the air duct.

As Wade's face came into view, Kim pressed a finger to her lips in the universal "quiet" gesture, then began to speak in a barely audible whisper.

"Any idea what _that_ is?" She asked, turning the Kimmunicator so that Wade could see the enormous chamber below. As was typical of the blue villain's lair, stacks of crates were piled around the room in pyramids and towers. In the center of it all was a large open space wherein rested an enormous machine. Kim turned the Kimmunicator back toward her face.

"Not yet." the young genius replied. "I can scan it, though."

Wade typed a few strokes on his keyboard, then reached for something next to his computer monitor. His gaming joystick.

"Wade?" Kim asked, raising her eyebrow disapprovingly.

"Just watch." Wade hit the Enter button on his keyboard and waited a moment.

Kim jumped with surprise as a small, inch-long bug-like object emerged from a compartment in the top of the Kimmunicator. It turned to look up at her, then opened a pair of wings on its back and flew out of the air duct.

"Fancy!" Kim whispered.

"You like it?" Wade asked.

"A lot."

Ron watched the entire ordeal in silence, keeping one eye on Kim and Wade and the other on the machine in the center of the room. Ever since waking up in Middleton Hospital a year previous, he had become more and more withdrawn, but during his months of recovery from his gunshot wounds, he had trained harder than ever. Even when he relapsed (his chest wound had begun to bleed again, internally, and he was once again forced to undergo surgery to repair it), he spent his days in bed working logic puzzles and strengthening his mind. The ordeal hadn't been an enjoyable one, and even his eyes had changed. They had become harder, more focused and calculating. And that wasn't all. His smile wasn't the same any more, either. Ron's goofy-ness virtually disappeared, leaving him an empty shell of his former self.

Kim, too, had undergone some changes during her recovery. As soon as her back had healed enough to allow it, she had begun to train again. She started revamping her fighting style, combining the sixteen different types of Kung Fu that she knew into newer and deadlier methods of combat. She still maintained a mostly positive outlook on things, as she had before, but as she witnessed Ron's transformation, her usual fiery enthusiasm dimmed into something closer to a glowing bed of coals.

And yet the two of them still made an incredibly effective team. Ron's focus and speed gave him a greater advantage over enemies like Monkey Fist and Dr. Dementor's henchmen, and as Kim observed his new behaviors, she began to understand exactly how he operated, meaning that she could do her job without worrying about his condition or his whereabouts. The result was that their need for verbal communication had greatly decreased, leaving them with less time wasted talking, and more time to fight without distraction. (It reminded Kim of a brother and sister she had met once; the two of them were so attuned to each other that they could have been twins if the sister weren't two years older. She had seen the two of them playing a cooperative video game together and marveled at how they could successfully batter their opponents without so much as a word.)

"Okay." Wade said, knocking the two of them out of their thoughts. "I've got the scan." The tiny, robotic insect-camera returned to the air duct and crawled into its compartment inside the Kimmunicator. Soon after, a three-dimensional x-ray image of Drakken's invention popped up on the device's screen.

The machine wasn't as large as it appeared to be; it was only twenty-two feet long with a width of ten feet and a height of fifteen feet. Most of it consisted of an outer skeleton covered with reinforced titanium-aluminum plating, for both strength and lightness. However, the interior was the most interesting part. Vials of various liquids and other substances lined the inside of the machine on either side of a conveyor belt, which itself was very short and ran straight through the big device. At the end of the belt, just inside the exit of the machine, there were two hydraulic arms designed to attach microchips to whatever came out.

"It's an assembly line of some sort." Remarked Kim. "But there's nothing to it; what could he possibly be building with it?"

"Clones." Wade replied.

"Hasn't he already tried that?" Kim asked incredulously.

"Yeah, he has, but this is different. He's got all the DNA from last time: the poodle, the elephant, and the cobra, but he also has a chemical compound designed to stabilize the molecular structure of the clones. They can't be destroyed with soda this time."

Kim groaned.

"That's not all." Wade continued. "Those microchips you see inside the machine give Drakken's clones the intelligence of a human being, plus full control over whatever comes out. All he has to do is implant one on the brain stem of each of his clones."

"Well, that settles it." Ron said, almost silently. "We'd better destroy that thing before he can get a chance to use it."

"Right." Wade answered. He typed a few commands into his computer, then frowned. "There's something wrong though. My scan indicates that the machine is ready, fully functional. If that's the case, it should be in operation. Drakken hasn't started cloning yet, which means he's waiting for something."

"If we've had any experience with things like this," Kim said, "it's the two of us he's waiting for. Wade, can your bug drone do surveillance?"

"Of course. Why?"

"Let's use it to find out where Drakken is."

"You got it."

The tiny robot emerged from the Kimmunicator and flew away once more, searching for the blue-skinned villain. It had traversed halfway across the room when a green energy blast flew up from the floor and reduced it to metallic ash. Kim looked down to see Shego standing next to the cloning device.

"Well, if it isn't Kimmie come to play." Sneered the green-skinned woman. "Why don't we have a little fun?"

"I thought you'd never show." Kim smiled as she turned off the Kimmunicator; she placed it inside her knapsack and kicked the grate out of the wall. She grabbed the edge of the air duct with her left hand to slow her descent and, allowing gravity to do the work, she slipped off the edge. She landed in a tiger-like crouch next to the wall. Ron mimicked the action, landing next to Kim in a like manner.

Without a word, the blonde produced the Lotus Blade, shifting it into a medium-length sword as he recalled something from his stay in the hospital. Master Sensei had visited Ron there, in the hospital (in his spirit form, of course), and informed him that the Lotus Blade was now his. _'A willingness to give one's own life for another, is a virtue far more valuable than any physical possession.' _Sensei had said with a grin,_ 'However, if you should want to keep your life, a reliable physical weapon is necessary.'_

With that, the old man had disappeared, leaving Ron with the legendary Lotus Blade. Since that day, young Stoppable had gone nowhere without it; when he wasn't using it in battle, he left it in the form of a pocket knife, which he carried in his right pants pocket.

"Ready, Ron?" Kim asked.

"When you are." He replied, readying the Blade.

Kim darted forward, lashing out at Shego while Ron made for the cloning machine. If he could destroy it now, before Drakken showed up with his henchmen, the work would be done and over with, and he and Kim could go home, where it was warm this time of year.

Ron approached the entrance to the cloning device; he was about to climb inside and hack away at its inner workings when he heard a familiar voice.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you!"

Ron spun around, watching Kim and Shego through his peripherals as he focused on Drakken. The blue-faced villain stood casually at the other end of the central clearing, leaning leisurely against a stack of crates. His arms were folded lazily over his chest. Drakken seemed unfazed by the fact that his arch nemesis had entered his lair and was attempting to foil his plans.

Ron was surprised at the utter lack of anger and panic that Drakken usually exuded during one of Team Possible's visits. It was somewhat unnerving; he knew that if the evil mastermind wasn't worried, then he had something planned, which meant that both Ron and Kim were missing some vital piece of information. Exactly what information he was missing revealed itself rather soon.

A sound came from the giant machine behind Ron. It was a small noise, but he heard it all the same, even over the chaos of Kim and Shego battling nearby, and turned to discover the source. He hardly got a glimpse of a green-and-black bodysuit before something knocked him unconscious.

Kim had just launched herself into a spinning kick that sent Shego staggering backwards a few steps. As the redhead spun, she caught a glance of Ron falling unconscious to the floor and something green-colored stepping out of the cloning machine. Only after she completed the spin and regained her footing did she realize that it was Shego.

_Yes, Shego._

Drakken's plan hadn't simply been to wait for her and Ron. It had been to show off his new toy before the rest of the world got a chance to see it. The machine could clone anything Drakken desired, and he'd finally wised up to the fact that Shego was the most powerful weapon in his arsenal. And it was Shego he had cloned.

Not just once, but twice. Another duplicate of the woman stepped out of Drakken's cloning machine and stood next to the first. One lifted Ron off of the floor and carried him toward a cage on the other side of the room; the other retrieved the Lotus Blade, which reverted to its original katana form in the hands of the Shego duplicate.

The real Shego approached Kim from behind. "You shouldn't get distracted, Pumpkin!" Before the redhead could shrug off her stupor and react, the villainess grabbed a handful of Kim's hair and jerked her head back. "If you don't focus on your opponent, he'll gain the upper hand." Kim's face contorted in pain as the green woman shook her head back and forth.

Shego giggled at the teen's obvious distress; it was too delicious. With two quick, synchronized movements, she first released Kim's hair and grabbed the back of her neck, then lifted her knee and drove it into Kim's stomach. The girl let out a pained 'Ack!' and fell to the floor, coughing.

Shego laughed again.

Her clones soon returned from the other side of the room and she allowed them to take Kim, watching with amusement as the teen fought feebly against their combined might; Drakken had given them each the strength of an African bull elephant, after all, and no one could overcome that sort of power easily.

Kim struggled to free herself from Shego's duplicates, but she knew it was pointless; Drakken had the ability to isolate and utilize any genetic trait he could find, and he had chosen some very useful ones for his clones: the speed and agility of a cobra, the strength of an African bull elephant, and the disposition of a small poodle with a big-dog complex. Not to mention the body of Shego; no doubt her superpowers would make a potent addition to his collection of high-tech weaponry.

As the two Shego imitations led her toward the cage at the back of the room, Kim searched for a possible escape. She couldn't reach the Kimmunicator at the moment, and even if she could, Drakken would confiscate it. Not that it mattered. As long as these imitations were holding on to her, she wasn't going anywhere.

With Drakken and Shego in tow, the trio consisting of Kim and the clones made their way toward the cage at the rear of the room. Drakken produced a remote from the inside of his dark blue lab coat and pressed a button. The cage door unlocked and swung open. Ron lay inside, still unconscious.

Before the clones could push Kim into the enclosure, Drakken halted them. "Wait a minute."

The clones stopped.

"Take her bag, and search her pockets. We can't afford any setbacks this time."

The clones did as they were told, removing Kim's knapsack ('There goes the Kimmunicator.' She thought.) and taking all of her belongings from her cargo pants, including her laser lipstick and her shoes. They even took her history notes.

"Hey! I need those for class tomorrow!"

"Sorry, Kimmie." Shego replied. "Nothing for you. I don't feel like babysitting tonight."

Kim sighed with resignation as she was shoved into the cell, with the door clanging shut behind her.

"Besides," Drakken commented, "I have a surprise for you later and I wouldn't want you to miss it!"

He left, chuckling to himself with amusement as Shego and her two doubles followed him away.

Kim glanced around the cage, noticing with dismay that, among the things that were missing, Ron's shoes, the Lotus Blade, and Rufus were included. Shego clone number one was carrying a small kennel containing the small hairless rodent, while number two carried the sword and the shoes, along with Kim's possessions.

As she watched Drakken and his cohorts walk away, Kim wondered, _'Are we losing our touch?'_


	2. Party Crashers

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 2: Party Crashers**

Kim sat cross-legged in a corner of the cage, trying her hardest to come up with some method of escape, but her concentration was shot. She couldn't think.

She glanced over at Ron, concerned that he still hadn't woken; it had been a good hour since their capture, and he hadn't made a sound since Kim joined him. He hadn't even reacted when Drakken moved the cage, first covering it, then lifting it off the floor with a crane and placing in an out-of-the-way corner of the room.

That was something else that concerned her. When the cover had been removed, Kim realized that Drakken had succeeded in disorienting her; she had no idea where the cloning device was. If she were to escape, she would have to spend precious time searching for the cloning device before she could destroy it, which would give Drakken and Shego time to find her. And time to recapture her.

Kim stood, stretching her legs and pacing to another corner of the cage; she stared out between the bars, searching for an answer to her predicament. Wade would know by now that she and Ron had been captured. He might call Global Justice, but Gemini had surfaced again, and Dr. Director was away dealing with that problem. Kim would have helped with _that_ mission, but she had been curious about Drakken's new plot, considering the fact that it had taken him at least a year and a half to set it in motion.

Ron groaned and sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. Kim turned around.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

"Sore." Ron replied. He had taken to speaking with single-word answers as often as possible.

"I think we're losing our touch." Kim remarked.

"Maybe."

"Any ideas on how to get out of here?"

"One."

"Which is?"

Ron's answer was to close his eyes and bow his head. Kim knew that he was attempting to call the Lotus Blade, but his concentration was broken by Drakken's voice.

"Kim Possible, and her dear sidekick, Ronald!"

Ron stared at the madman in confusion, realizing that the villain had just remembered, _and used_, his name.

"Oh, yes, I know your name. It's not so hard to remember now that you're my pawn!"

"Pawn?" Kim asked.

"Yes, _pawn_." Drakken replied. "This operation has taken over a year and a half to complete because I've been studying up on the two of you. I've performed experiments and tests, and I've finally found a solution to my problem."

"Which is?" Kim asked, repeating her earlier question to Ron.

"You see, I tried to duplicate the mind-control microchip I once used on you, but the terrible truth is, a true human mind is too much for the technology. The microchip stops working after a few days. Shego is proof enough of that. Anyway, I decided to try it on one of my synthodrones, but as it turns out, their minds are too simple; the synthodrones can't handle the complexity of the technology, and they shut down.

"So I re-created my cloning device and tried the microchip on one of my clones; it turned out perfectly. The only problem was that the clones melted when exposed to carbonated drinks. I had to rethink my entire clone formula. This took about a month. When I finally got it right, I attached one of my microchips to its brain stem. Much to my delight, the clone didn't stop working, and after several days, the microchip was still operating at top capacity."

"And what does this have to do with us?" Kim asked. "If we're your new pawns, how do you plan on getting microchips into our heads without frying them?"

Drakken looked annoyed. "I intend to clone you, Miss Possible. You see, this is why my operation has taken an entire eighteen months to complete. I've been watching you and your sidekick Mr. Stoppable. Even his _naked mole rat_." Drakken spoke about Rufus with disgust. "First, I create your clones. Second, I program your personalities into their microchips. Then-."

"If you put my personality into a clone, wouldn't you have to worry about _it _ruining your plans?"

"You forget. I will be the programmer. I can remove that particular portion of your personality. When I send your clones home to take your place, however, they will only _seem_ to hate me; they will come to my lair as though they were on a mission to stop my plans, but they will really be coming to serve me."

"Okay, that much makes sense." Replied Kim. "But why would you send the clones to take our places at home if you're just going to bring them back here?"

"Elementary, my dear Kimberly. The idea is to keep you from interrupting the rest of my plans. I spent a whole year and a half planning this operation simply to keep you out of my future schemes. From here on out, you will no longer be a threat. Not only that, but when I need more help than Shego can provide, your clones will be the answer."

"Wait a second." Kim said. "If you're only creating clones of us to help you, then why not just clone Shego again?"

"As I said before, with you 'at home,' no one will suspect that you are missing, and no one will come looking. Global Justice stays out of my way, too!"

Now Kim understood the full ramifications of Drakken's plan. He was getting her and Ron out of the way, while at the same time flying under the radar with his world domination. Not good.

Drakken began to speak again. "There is an unfortunate side effect to this plan, though. In order for these clones to truly take your place, you will have to be eliminated." Shego and her clones entered the room and stood behind Drakken, who produced his remote and opened the cage door. The blue-skinned scientist laughed. "I think," he chuckled, "I'll have your own copies kill you. The irony would be a wonderful start to world conquest!"

Neither Kim nor Ron made any effort to resist Shego's clones as they escorted the two of them back to the center of the chamber, where the cloning machine still sat idle. Drakken approached the control panel on the side of the machine and typed in a series of commands; the device powered up with a _beep_ and a humming noise, like that of an electric engine.

Drakken approached Kim and, using a pair of forceps, grabbed a single red hair. With a quick yank, he pulled it from her scalp and place it in a small vile next to the control panel on the machine. He hit a button on the keypad, and a robotic arm emerged from the inside of the cloning device and reached for the vile with Kim's hair inside. Just as the claw was closing around the little glass container, the power failed. Everything became utterly silent, and completely dark. The cloning device, too, had stopped running.

"What the-" Drakken's surprised exclamation echoed loudly throughout the room.

Kim heard Ron's clothing rustle and knew he had again closed his eyes and bowed his head.

All was silent for a moment longer before a single overhead light snapped on, revealing a young boy, about fifteen years old, standing alone near the vent where Kim and Ron had entered.

He was about five and a half feet tall, with electric blue eyes and a sharp jaw line. His hair was thin and feathery, no longer than the tops of his ears, and was steel grey in color. He was wearing baggy denim jeans and a dark green hoodie. He also had the first two fingers of his right hand pressed against his temple.

In the faint glow, Kim could see Ron reach up and take hold of the Lotus Blade, which had returned to him just seconds after the light had come on. Instead of jumping into action, as Kim had expected, he waited.

Drakken shook off his stupor. "You!" He said, turning to the nearest Shego clone and pointing at the boy. "Grab him!"

As the clone moved forward, the boy ginned and back-stepped until he disappeared behind the nearest stack of crates, which stood a few steps to his right. Shego's copy was about to walk around them and seize the kid when there was a sound of rushing air, like an enormous beast breathing. The clone looked up and hesitated, and before Drakken could yell 'What are you waiting for?', a jet of scarlet flame erupted from behind the crates and swallowed the clone where it stood. Orange-and-red lights flickered briefly on the wall, but in a few seconds, nothing was left of Drakken's creation but a large, oil-colored puddle of ooze on the floor.

The color drained out of Drakken's face as a dragon (yes, a _dragon_) stepped into view from behind the stack of crates, its claws tapping loudly on the floor. The blue-eyed boy was sitting on its back, his fingers still pressed firmly to his head. The rest of the overhead lights came on.

The dragon stood ten feet tall at the shoulder and was covered in round, iridescent-green scales. It had a large, birdlike beak and two long sweeping horns that emerged from the back of its skull. Its eyes had no pupils, but instead appeared to have been made of two orbs of sterling silver that were popped into its eye sockets.

Kim also noted that the dragon was fully able to hold its body off of the ground. It was nothing like the lounge-lizard dragons she had seen in so many mythology text books.

At this point, things began to happen very quickly. While Drakken stared at the dragon in disbelief and fear, Ron brandished the Blade as though he were preparing to swing it, then approached the final Shego clone and stabbed forward with the katana. This one, however, had seen its partner go down and wasn't about to suffer a like fate; it spun on its heel as Ron stabbed forward, dodging effectively out of the way, then grabbed his wrist and threw him forward. Ron was sent sliding on his stomach across the floor.

The real Shego stepped toward Ron, too, intending to aid her duplicate, but Kim laid a hand on the woman's shoulder and spun her around. "You shouldn't get distracted." She said as she kicked upward with her left foot. Shego dodged to the side and lashed out with a glowing fist, not bothering with a response.

Meanwhile, as Kim and Shego dueled, Ron rolled to his feet and was about to face off with his own opponent when a large, bizarre beast dropped from the tower of crates to his left and placed itself directly between him and the clone. Ron stared at the creature, unwilling to believe his eyes.

The beast was four feet tall at the shoulder. Its body was grey and resembled that of a wolf, but was scaly and more muscular. It had a long reptilian tail and from each of its shoulders grew four squid like tentacles. Its head looked as if it had come off of a giant cobra.

It looked at the Shego clone and released a sound unlike any other Ron had ever heard. It howled-hissed-screamed.

Then, before Ron or the clone could do anything, it leaped forward and sank its fangs into its opponent. More black ooze spattered across the floor as the clone was reduced to nothing more than scraps of artificial meat.

The creature turned from its kill and looked at Ron, who brandished the Lotus Blade. He wasn't sure what this thing was, but he wasn't about to take any chances; if it so much as spat in his direction, he would kill it.

However, instead of attacking him, as Ron had expected, it turned and tackled Shego, pinning her to the floor with its tentacles and screaming in her face. The woman was actually terrified. Kim stared, too, dazed by the interruption to her battle. She soon registered exactly what she was seeing, however, and began to back away from the creature when Ron appeared at her side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"It's okay."

As soon as Shego had been detained, the boy on the dragon hopped to the floor and removed his fingers from his head. Immediately, the rest of the power returned, allowing the cloning device to resume its job. The little claw closed around the vile of Kim's hair and disappeared inside the machine.

However, it never got a chance to finish its duty. The dragon walked forward and took one look at the machine before thrusting its head inside and releasing enough fire to melt anything useful. Then it turned to Team Possible, and with a look akin to relief, lay down on the cool concrete floor.

Drakken had been too stupefied to say anything, but now he turned around and was creeping away when the fifteen-year-old wrapped his hand around the back of the man's neck. Drakken dropped to the floor. The boy knelt next to him, keeping his hand on Drakken's neck.

Kim was dazed. "What just happened?"

The blue-eyed boy looked up and grinned. "We thought we might help you out." His voice was surprisingly serious for someone his age, even though he was smiling, and Kim knew that he had been through more in his young life than she ever would, Walter Baron included.

"We?" Ron asked, his arm now wrapped around Kim's waist.

"Yeah. That's right." He turned serious, then shouted to someone they couldn't see. "Matt, you can come out now."

"About time," another young, male voice said. "How are they, Roy?"

"They're fine, Matthew, now come introduce yourself."

Another boy, about the same age as the one with blue eyes, stepped into the clearing from behind yet another pile of crates. Kim gasped.

This boy, Matthew, was a little taller than Roy, and had tar-black hair, but he was far from normal. The first thing that Kim noticed was that he had an enormous pair of bat-like wings growing from his back. The second was that he had unusual eyes; they were sickle, cat-like, and they were black. His hands were different, too. His fingertips were scaly, and he had claws rather than fingernails. When he smiled, Kim and Ron noticed that he had fangs.

"Don't look so surprised." He said, "After everything else you've seen, I think I come pretty close to normal."

Roy spoke up. "Stop it, Matthew. You know for a fact that, other than Kim and Ron, no one here is normal. Anyway, let's get Drakken and Shego locked up. Then we can talk about it all we want."

The next half hour was spent finding the crane controls, moving the cage back into the center of the main chamber, locking Drakken and Shego inside, and tracking down Kim's and Ron's belongings. When Rufus saw the dragon he retreated to Ron's pants pocket and stayed there.

"Now that everything is taken care of," Kim said. "I can call Wade and ask him to send GJ up here."


	3. Odd Ones Out

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 3: Odd Ones Out**

After Kim got off the line with Dr. Director's second-in-command, she slipped the Kimmunicator into her knapsack and turned to Roy.

"What now? Do you want to talk here or somewhere else?"

Roy glanced at his teammates. "Not here. Not with those two nearby." He indicated Drakken and Shego. "The four of us will meet you at Bueno Nacho tomorrow, at noon. Get an outdoor table near the rear of the building so Matthew can stay nearby without attracting attention."

Kim nodded.

"Oh, and one more thing." Roy interjected as the others turned to leave. "Two of our comrades weren't able to join us today; one of them may join us tomorrow, but she might be late. I should also mention that for most of us, our existence is not well-known. Please don't say anything to Global Justice about us."

Without another word, he turned and joined his friends near a stack of crates. The four of them began to weave their way through the wooden boxes, and soon the sounds of their footsteps were gone.

Thirty hours later, Kim and Ron sat, as instructed, at an outdoor table at Bueno Nacho, near the rear of the building. Originally, their backs had been to the parking area, but they turned their chairs to face away from the table, so that they could see the street. The time was 11:58 a.m. Roy still hadn't arrived, but the question was, _Would he?_

He did.

At the stroke of noon, the blue-eyed boy appeared across the street, two young women at his side. One looked to be about sixteen; the other seemed to be twenty or older. They were certainly careful; their eyes never focused on anything for more than a second or two, but they quickly crossed the street and approached the table where Team Possible was seated. Kim and Ron turned their chairs back toward the table; Kim glanced behind Bueno Nacho, and sure enough, Matthew was leaning against the side of the building, his wings resting out-of-sight against the wall behind him, where the shadows kept them hidden. She turned her attention back to Roy.

"Good to see you again." She smiled. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes." Roy replied. "If you haven't, you may want to. We can explain while you have lunch."

Ron nodded as he stood up. "I'll order. Be back in a minute."

Kim leaned back in her chair and looked at Roy. "Okay. I've got a couple of names: You're Roy, and he's Matthew, but," She turned to the two young women, "I have yet to get your names. I'm guessing that you two are the dragon and that creature from yesterday?"

They nodded. The older of the two spoke first. "My name is Karen Beckwit. I'm twenty years of age." She was about five foot seven with deep, blue-green eyes and wavy, dark brown hair that hung to about six inches below her shoulders. Kim also noticed her less-than-typical choice of words. _'. . . .of age?'_

The other girl spoke, interrupting Kim's thoughts. "I'm an orphan. I don't know my real name, but everyone I know calls me Shift. I'm seventeen." She was shorter than Karen, measuring in around five foot four. Her hair was only jaw-length, but was straight and blonde. Nothing about her seemed odd.

Kim nodded. "What about you, Roy? How old are you and Matthew?"

"I'm fifteen; Matt's sixteen."

A few moments of silence passed as Kim processed the information. She looked up to see Ron exiting Bueno Nacho, a tray of food in his hands. As he sat down, she told him what she had just learned.

"Okay." He replied as he handed Kim her chicken salad. "Now the rest."

"All right." Roy said. "I guess means I'm first." He took a deep breath and began his story. "You may have guessed it already, but that business yesterday with the lights was me. I'm a technopath."

Kim blinked. "You wanna run that by me again?"

"I'm a technopath." Roy repeated, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Kim took a sip of her soda. "As in, build a computer with your mind?"

"That's the most common stereotype." Roy answered. "But no. I'm not that kind of technopath. When most people hear the word 'technopath' they think of somebody who can build any piece of technology with his mind, like you said, but that's not me."

Kim jumped in. "So what _can_ you do?"

"I'm . . . . attuned, so to speak, to electricity. I can increase or decrease the flow of any electrical current at will, even stop it if I wish. I can reprogram almost any electronic device. I can hack into computers with some of the most sophisticated security in the world. I can even access the Internet, using only my mind; all I need is a screen of some sort."

"Wouldn't that mean you could be traced?" Kim asked.

"You see," Roy said, "that's the interesting part. I can use the screen, but that doesn't mean that I'm using a computer in itself. I can leave the device itself untouched; all I'm using is the monitor."

Kim nodded. "I see."

And, I can paralyze people by touching the back of the neck, like with Drakken yesterday. I can even redirect lightning."

"Redirect?" Ron asked.

"Yeah. I can't stand outside during a storm and call lightning out of the sky, but if I know it's coming, I can control where it goes. I can even withstand being struck. Barely."

"Wow." Kim said. "So. . . .with Drakken, what you did was stop the electrical signals in his brain from reaching his voluntary muscles?"

"Yep. That's it."

Matthew chuckled. "Don't let him fool you. He's got a weakness or two, don't you Roy?"

Roy shifted in his chair. "It's not really fair, if you ask me, but if someone fires off an EMP, it sends me into a seizure. First I seize, then I pass out, then I wake up and vomit. Gross, I know, but true. Oh, yes, and I can read people's minds, but I have to touch them. In the center of the forehead."

Kim thought for a moment. "Were you born with your powers?"

"No. I was kidnapped when I was only six and sold on the black market. I'm really Canadian, but I was bought by a secret group of Russian scientists who call themselves Tesla, after the scientist. You've heard the stories I'm sure. Anyway, These Russian scientists found some old equipment they thought belonged to Tesla. They also wanted to build a weapon, a weapon that they could control. So, they started doing experiments on kids like me. I wasn't the first kid they tested, but I was the first to be given a new treatment.

"Most kids got a serum before they were exposed to Tesla's machines, but none of the treatments were having the desired effect. So, the scientists came up with another formula, which they gave to me first. Unlike the other children they tested, I didn't end up with electrical burns. My eyes and hair also changed color; my eyes used to be green, but now they're blue, as you can see. My hair used to be black. Anyway, I didn't immediately manifest any new abilities, and I turned out so different from the other kids they'd tested that they were going to kill me, but I managed to escape with the help of my new powers and a few of my instincts."

Kim frowned. "Are these 'Tesla' guys still doing experiments on people?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, they come looking for me from time to time, but I'm always a step ahead."

Ron nodded. "Okay, then. What about you, Karen?" He crumpled a Naco wrapper and set it aside.

"I am the dragon you saw."

Kim speared a piece of chicken with her spork. "That was _you_?"

"Mmm-hmm. I'm a Darkut: a half-human, half-dragon hybrid. I was born this way. And I'm not the only one; there's a whole community of us in New York and other major U.S. cities. There are also groups in countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Some ice dragons also live in the colder regions, looking after things there."

Ron's eyes lit up at the thought of dragon-people living all over Earth. "Badical!" He exclaimed, pumping a fist into the air.

Kim hadn't seen him smile like that since before the Baron incident. She wanted to laugh. Instead, she asked, "Where did you come from? As a species, I mean."

Karen steepled her hands. "Do you remember the story about the princess locked away in the dragon-guarded tower?" Kim nodded. "Well, it's a lie. The prince arrived to slay the dragon and there was no one around. So he searched the princess's room to find out what happened, and he found a note written by none other than the princess herself. She and the dragon had fallen in love, so they went away to live in his cave. By some strange magical paradox, the princess became pregnant and gave birth to a dragon's egg. When it hatched, a human child was born, but upon reaching adolescence, he discovered he could transform, taking the shape of a dragon."

"That's a fairy tale you don't hear every day." Kim remarked.

"Certainly." Karen said. "Anyway, this human-dragon pairing started happening more and more, and eventually, there were Darkut of all kinds: Fire, ice, earth, water, light shadow, and even celestial dragons. There were even other pairings, such as those between humans and wyverns; _their_ offspring are known as Wilgut."

"Wilgut?" Ron asked, serious again.

"Yes. Wilgut are another side effect of magic, but the magic that they come from is dark. You hear stories about dragons and their rampages, about how they plundered treasure and ate beautiful maidens, but none of those stories are really true. The real criminals were wyverns, and wyverns also have hybrid descendents. They are called, as I said before, Wilgut. Humans never could tell the difference between dragons and wyverns, so they lumped all of the evil into one big category, which they labeled 'dragons,' but there are really quite a few differences between us and wyverns.

"The biggest difference is our appearance. Dragons have four legs, and wyverns have only two; dragons have the ability to breath and manipulate fire and other elements as part of their genetic code, but wyverns do not; and wyverns have more prominent fangs and are slightly larger than dragons are. The mental and emotional differences are huge, too. Dragons can sense other Darkut, even when the Darkut is in human form, but Wilgut can sense both Darkut _and_ other Wilgut. And you might not know it, but the Wilgut are a huge part of everyday crime. They want all humans and dragons gone, but they also desire power and money, and they'll do anything for it. We Darkut, on the other hand, serve as sort of a vigilante crime-resistance group by countering a lot of their 'activities.'"

"Oh." Kim said. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed by all of the new information she was receiving.

Sensing that Karen was finished, Shift began her story. "Okay, my turn!" She said. "I told you before; my name is Shift, which is kind of redundant because I'm a shapeshifter."

"A shapeshifter?" Ron asked.

"Yep!" Shift became serious. "I'm an orphan; I was raised in an orphanage that was actually run by another shapeshifter named Ms. Josephine. She was pretty mean, but only to me. She knew what I was, even when I didn't. I think she wanted to kill me, but I was saved by another shapeshifter who came to the orphanage and helped me get away. We're kind of like Karen and the other Darkut; we shapeshifters live in our own sort of underground community, but we don't try to live among humans. We don't venture up to the surface much because we try to stay out of sight, and even when we do come out, it's for a short time. We spend most of our time trying to combat other groups of shapeshifters who kill for fun. Many of the men and women on the FBI's Most Wanted list are shapeshifters."

Ron interjected. "How did _you_ come to exist? Is being a shapeshifter a genetic anomaly, or are you a species of your own?"

"We're a species of our own, but we've been pretty much forgotten. When everything was 'created,' so to speak, there were no 'humans.' 'Human' was a form we took when we weren't in the guise of an animal. Shapeshifters were the dominant species on Earth. Our history doesn't mention why, but for some reason a large number of shapeshifters chose to remain 'human' and abandon their abilities. After several hundred years, they lost their ability to transform. Eventually they forgot about their abilities, and even about shapeshifters themselves. Then, without realizing it, they became the 'dominant species' on Earth. Since you two are not shapeshifters, you are descendants of those who abandoned their powers."

Ron nodded. "I see."

"Now," Kim said. "I think that leaves Matthew."

No one looked in his direction, but the teen began to speak from his hiding place anyway, understanding that the others were listening.

"I am half Darkut."

Kim spoke up. "You're only a quarter dragon?"

"Yes. That's why I'm stuck between the two forms. My mother is a Darkut and my father is completely human. My father works with a medical company in New York Cit-"

"Wait a minute." Ron interrupted. "All of you are from New York City?"

Karen and Shift nodded, and even without looking, Ron knew that Matthew was, too.

Matthew continued. "As a matter of fact, everyone in our little crew is from New York except for Danielle. She's from Seattle, Washington, and she's the one we told you might arrive today."

"Excuse me!" Returned an unfamiliar voice. "I _have_ arrived!"

A girl wearing a black bodysuit and a black backpack stepped out from behind Matthew. She was carrying a black helmet under her left arm.

"About time you showed up!" Replied Matthew. "We were beginning to wonder if Kofeland fed you to the fish!"

"Not a chance!" Danielle laughed. "He's history! The FBI arrested him yesterday, so he'll be spending some time behind bars. Anyway, get back to your story so I can tell mine!"

Matthew's lip curled into a grin, revealing his right fang. "Fine. I'll do that." He snickered. "Anyway, as I was saying, my dad works with a medical company in New York; their goal is to take naturally occurring chemicals, like adrenaline, from the human body and manipulate them so that human abilities are increased. The goal is to create some sort of half-super-soldiers, people with better reflexes, better eyesight, longer endurance, greater stamina, and so on. But, the doctors are cheating. They know about the Darkut, and have been capturing them in order to use _their_ abilities. Unfortunately, the ability to wield elements hasn't been passed on to human hosts. So far it seems that only the dragons are capable of such power.

"There is a catch, though. One of our teammates, a woman by the name of Onyx Bedra, was exposed to a serum when her mother was still pregnant with her. Onyx was born with an incredibly high endurance; she can run for a far greater distance than normal humans. She can also hear the thoughts of anyone who's watching her, which comes in handy when a sniper is ready to blow your head off.

"But anyway, back to the story. My dad and his company captured Onyx and held her in one of their cells so that they could study her abilities. When I found out about some of the things that my dad's company was doing to their test subjects, I freed her and let her agency take care of everything. I've also rescued civilians from a huge apartment fire started by Wilgut who were out on another killing spree; I was able to help so much because I'm partially impervious to heat. But overall, my story is nothing too special."

Matthew stopped and took a breath, indicating that he was finished. Kim and Ron turned to Danielle.

"Well," Danielle said. "I guess that makes it my turn!"

Kim took a good look at the girl. She was five foot, six and a half inches tall with brownish-blonde hair and gray-green eyes. Kim nodded to indicate that she was ready for Danielle to begin.

"Okay. I guess I'm the last one, but I'm going to keep it short because I have to show you guys something and it can't be done here. I have permission from Global Justice to take you back to headquarters for that. Anyway, on with the story.

"My name is Danielle Bridger, but you can call me Danni, and I'm seventeen years old. I'm also part of a top secret government project called FreedomFlight. Ten people, including myself, were chosen to be subjects in this project. There are four other girls, and five guys, making an even ten members; we've become known within our division as the Gliders. We were recruited by the United States government to be a part of this project and were given a brain surgery that allowed us manipulate artificial limbs outside of our bodies, using only our minds."

Kim blinked. "You mean like that experiment that was done several years ago? The one that allowed some kid to play video games without using his hands?"

"Yes. Exactly like that, but more advanced. We're able to use prosthetic body parts as though we'd been born with them. Specifically: wings."

"So, you can . . . fly?" Ron asked. "Are you telling me that you guys are some sort of man-made angels?"

Danielle faltered. "Sure, if that's the way you want to put it, but I have a real issue with angel cracks and jokes about guardian angels. I'm human, and I don't claim to be anything more."

Ron's expression softened. "I apologize. I didn't mean anything by that. I was just making a comparison I could follow."

Danielle broke into a smile, her frustration forgotten. "Don't worry about it! I'm not the type to take things personally. Anyway, the suit I'm wearing is actually a result of all of the work put into FreedomFlight. The backpack covers the wings so I can move around in public without attracting attention, and the helmet looks like an ordinary motorcycle helmet, which goes well with the suit. I look like any ordinary motorcyclist off the street."

"So what's with all the black?" Kim asked.

"I specialize in night operations. Other FreedomFlight operatives wear different colors, like blue or grey, so they can work in the daylight."

Kim nodded. "All right, then. Is that it?"

Roy and the others nodded.

"Okay." Danielle said. "Let's get this show on the road. She slipped her helmet over her head and pressed a button on the right side of the headgear. With a few short words, she had summoned a black SUV to the curbside. Everyone climbed into the vehicle and fastened their seatbelts. Then, without another word, they began the ride to Global Justice Headquarters.


	4. Normalcy

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 4: "Normalcy"**

Kim gazed in awe as Danielle removed her 'backpack.' Underneath the empty shell of a book-bag was a pair of jet-black wings. And they were huge. Kim estimated their span at fourteen feet or more.

Danni smiled as she flexed and stretched the artificial pinions, obviously pleased with another chance to use them. She glanced around the open, underground training area, then tipped her head back and gazed at the faraway ceiling. This place was like a baseball stadium, only bigger. With a whoop of excitement, the teen took off running toward a large ramp that had been set out a dozen feet away. As she ran, she slipped her helmet onto her head and flattened her hands against her shoulders. Then she hit the ramp and ran straight to the end. With a leap off of the edge, she pumped her wings and instantly became airborne.

Kim and Ron could hardly believe what they were seeing, but the feeling soon vanished as they recalled the other impossibilities they'd seen and heard within the past two days. Behind them, sitting against the wall, were Matthew, Roy, Shift, and Karen. The four of them watched as their comrade gained altitude.

Danielle climbed to the top of the training room and angled herself toward the floor. Then she folded her wings and dove. With a graceful twirl and a corkscrew, she opened her wings and avoided a fatal collision with the room's concrete foundation.

"Wow." Kim said. "It's amazing the things we miss out on, even with Wade as our tech support."

"Yeah." Ron agreed.

With a final backward loop, Danielle stopped and hovered above the teens for a few moments, then guided herself toward the takeoff platform she had leaped off of moments before. She stopped flapping her wings and dropped three feet onto the edge of the ramp, then folded her wings and covered them with the 'backpack' harness she had been carrying with her. She removed her helmet as she approached her new comrades.

"Well?" She asked, arching an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

Kim responded first. "I think it's incredible! Imagine how much easier it would have been to sneak up on Drakken if we'd had this tech!"

"I know, right? FreedomFlight is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Too bad I don't get much personal time with this thing. Business only for now, you know." Danni winked and rolled her shoulders, shifting the weight of her wings on her back. "Anyway, that's all I needed to show you. I couldn't show you in public, for obvious reasons, but enough of that. It's been an interesting day, and my parents will be worried sick if I don't call them and tell them how my third day of 'summer camp' went."

Matthew, who had been standing against the wall nearby, approached with a smile, displaying his fangs in a wicked grin. "Not so fast, Danni! What do you say to some aerial sparring before you go? I could use some practice!"

Danni shot Matthew a competitive glance, then giggled. "You think you can beat me?"

Matthew chuckled in return. "Just remember that I'm not the one who said it. You are." With that, he took a running start at the exercise ramp and lifted his own dragon-like wings. With a single bound and one pump of his strangely graceful pinions, he was in the air, and circling like some sort of avian shark. Danielle laughed with delight and removed her harness again, already sprinting forward.

The teenager was just coming level with her competitor when a familiar voice rang out behind Kim and Ron.

"Team Possible! It's good to see you again!"

The teens turned simultaneously to see Dr. Director approaching from the main door, flanked on each side by an armed Global Justice agent.

"Dr. Director! It's good to see you, too!" Kim replied.

Ron proffered a hand, which Dr. Director shook. "How are you?" He asked.

"I'm fine, but I came to check on you. It seems we have some catching up to do since yesterday."

"Well. . . "

"It's all right, Kim. I already know about what happened at the lair. Roy may not realize it, but we know more than he thinks we do." Betty grinned and looked in the boy's direction. He frowned and avoided her gaze. "Anyway, I wanted to say thanks for apprehending Drakken and Shego again."

"No problem." Kim replied. "Weren't you away on a mission? I thought Gemini was on the loose again."

"He is, but while I was chasing him down yesterday, I managed to damage some very important equipment. It should keep him floundering for a few more days until we can catch up and take him into custody. And figure out exactly what he's up to."

Kim nodded in agreement and turned her gaze back to the sparring teens above. She was surprised to see them using their wings as weapons just as readily as they used their hands and feet.

Kim heard Karen shout from her place by the wall. "Look out, you two! It's my turn!" She turned to see the twenty-year-old hold up her right hand. The appendage took on a strange blue-green color and claws sprang from her hand where her fingernails were supposed to be. Scales appeared at Karen's fingertips and began to overtake the rest of her hand, then moved up her arm. The young woman dropped to her hands and knees as her clothes were absorbed into what was now becoming iridescent dragon-scaled skin. Karen grew in size until she looked like an enormous emerald swift lizard. The final change in her appearance came with her wings, which seemed to grow from her shoulders like an odd mutation. As soon as the transformation was complete, she turned to Dr. Director and Team Possible and said, "The change is a bit different every time; the next transformation might reveal my wings first, or my horns. It all depends on the situation." She then focused her attention on her friends above and roared.

Matthew and Danielle stopped and hovered, staring at their companion below. Then Matthew cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Well, are you going to attack or not?"

Karen unfurled her enormous wings and charged.

Several hours later, Kim was sitting on her bed, processing everything she had learned that day. It was only five in the evening, but she didn't feel like doing much of anything; there was too much to think about. And on top of that, there was the issue of Roy and his aversion to Global Justice. What was that all about?

He had made it a point to tell Kim that no one knew about him and his friends, but Dr. Director had made it very clear that Roy's statement was false. That meant that either Roy was lying, or he was mistaken. Both were forgivable, but Kim wanted to know if there was a falsehood involved, and if so, why would Roy immediately betray her trust like that. The boy had seemed sincere enough, and Kim didn't think that he meant any harm. Perhaps he was afraid of something, a part of his past or-.

'_That's it!'_ Kim thought. _'Of course he's afraid of his past! Tesla's after him! If they found out where he was, they would barge in with guns blazing! He's not just keeping himself out of danger; he's keeping his friends out of danger, too!'_

Kim smiled to herself. He didn't have anything to worry about. She didn't plan on telling anyone about Roy or his friends. She would call him tomorrow and tell him. She could keep a secret, and so could Global Justice. If anything, their job was to keep secrets. They certainly wouldn't sell out one of their best allies.

With a sigh, Kim stood up and went downstairs to join her family in watching some TV.


	5. Plot Unfolding

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 5: Plot Unfolding**

Drakken stood high on an elevated catwalk, gazing affectionately at the control panel arrayed before him. Gleaming buttons and bright switches met his gaze with promises of a new beginning, one he intended to take full advantage of, especially if his mysterious benefactor had any intention of helping him obliterate Kim Possible.

It had been two weeks since the incident in the Himalayas. Thirteen days after that, he had been freed from Middleton Penitentiary by a mysterious group of mercenaries, then transported to his Pacific sub-oceanic base. Shego had arrived several hours later from her own cell at Global Justice headquarters; she was sitting in a chair next to Drakken, filing her nails as she often did.

The base itself was similar to the one he had constructed before, but this time, he had added a few more security measures. Along the ocean floor, up to a half a mile in every direction, dozens of security cameras kept a vigilant lookout for both welcome and unwelcome visitors alike, and if anything seemed suspicious about any nearby organisms, they could be blasted out of the water by miniature torpedoes packed with concentrated explosive material. And that was only a portion of the _external_ defenses.

This particular base had been occupied by Global Justice agents a month before, in an attempt to prevent further use by Drakken or any other villains. Unfortunately for them, they had been foolish enough to leave the facility in optimum working condition; nothing was damaged, and even all of the submersible units were docked safely in their subaquatic ports.

All but one, which was approaching from the West. As soon as the craft was within range, Drakken tapped into the vessel's onboard cameras and confirmed the identities of its passengers. Nothing was amiss.

A few short minutes later, a yellow light blinked to life on the control panel and a bodiless male voice announced, "Vessel approaching dock number three."

Drakken flipped a switch next to the indicated light. A loud _clang _reverberated through the walls of the facility, followed by another noise, a quiet _clunk_.

"Vessel secure. Seal established. Engaging airlocks. Opening outer doors. Opening inner doors."

As soon as the indicated portal had been opened, an entire party entered the main chamber. Drakken recognized several of Kim Possible's greatest enemies: Professor Dementor, The Señor Seniors, and Monkey Fist.

Behind all of _them_, a final pair of villains exited the submarine, and even without a proper introduction, Drakken knew that it was these two men had to thank for his freedom. None of Miss Possible's other villains had the means to organize such a well-planned and well-coordinated attack on a high-security prison, especially while incarcerated within the walls of said facility.

Drakken stepped away from his control panel and descended the stairs to "ground level." As he approached his new group of visitors, now his cohorts and co-workers, he gave a brief greeting.

"Ah, so you've made it! Welcome to my sub-Pacific lair! Please make yourselves at home. There is a room for each of you in the housing sector of the facility, which can be found near the center of the compound. I suggest you all rest tonight, and tomorrow we can get on with business!"

Everyone but the two nameless arrivals exited the room through the nearest door, guided by Shego to their living quarters.

Drakken approached the final pair of men. One was approximately five and a half feet tall with gray-streaked black hair and vibrant blue eyes. He stood with an air of pride, as though he was absolutely certain of every action he took. He was a man who made decisions and didn't stop to regret them.

The second man, obviously a protector and bodyguard to the first, watched his surroundings, including the approaching Drakken, with an alertness that bordered on obsession. Drakken knew that this blonde-haired, violet-eyed individual would go to great lengths to protect the man next to him, and his five-foot-eight, well-muscled frame was the perfect weapon.

As Drakken neared the newcomers, the dark-haired man smiled and extended his hand in greeting. "Good evening, Doctor. It seems we finally have a chance to meet face-to-face. It's a pleasure. My name is Walter Baron, and this is my right hand man and bodyguard, Rick Owens."

Drakken recoiled from Walter's handshake. "Owens? Isn't he-?"

"He _was_, but no more. It seems the world of crime pays much better than the bounty hunting job he used to have."

Drakken visibly relaxed. "Ah. Good. Well, then, what do you have planned for Miss Kimberly, if I may ask?"

Walter placed his hands behind his back. "If it's all right with you, Doctor, I'd rather wait until everyone has rested and we are all in one place. My plan is quite complicated and I'd rather not have to explain it more than once. However, I will say this: I plan on resurrecting your cloning project a second time. Your most recent attempt at global domination was nearly successful, I hear, and I hope to take a similar approach in this endeavor."

Drakken grinned. "I still have all of my notes on the chemical structure of the clones. We should be able to re-create them without any problems. I also have one of the necessary microchips. I don't believe there will be any issues copying those, either."

"Good. Now, Dr. Drakken, if you don't mind, I think I would like to rest. We have a very busy week ahead of us and we're going to need as much energy as we can afford. A lot of planning has gone into this, and it wouldn't do to leave ourselves open to attack."

"Very true, Mr. Baron. Please go and rest. We'll get started tomorrow after everyone has had a good night's sleep."

Drakken watched his new comrade leave the room and returned to his control panel on the catwalk. With the flick of a switch, he activated the base's defenses and engaged the security system. Then he entered a password into the panel's keypad, locking the systems into their current setting until he personally re-entered the code; he might have found new allies, but every one of them, like himself, was a villain. It would be unwise to leave himself open to others like him.

Late the next morning, after everyone had recovered from the previous day's travels, Kim Possible's mortal enemies assembled around a large, highly-polished cherry wood table in Dr. Drakken's conference room. Walter, with the consent of almost everyone else in the room, had taken his place at the head of the table. Not only had he been the one to formulate the new plan for revenge on Kim Possible, but _he _had been the one to free them each from their various prisons, after all, and since he had coordinated such an operation from a prison of his own, it was only right that he should be charged with the success of the mission he was about to propose.

Rick stood at the door, monitoring the room's occupants and the proceedings therein, albeit with his ever-present zeal. To Baron's left, Drakken sat in his designated position, with Shego standing behind him. She eyed Rick with something close to disdain.

To Drakken's left, sat Professor Dementor and Gemini, then Monkey Fist, who himself was seated across from Baron. Opposite Drakken and Professor Dementor, respectively, sat Señor Senior Senior and Señor Senior Junior.

As soon as everyone had taken their chosen seats, Walter stood and began to speak.

"Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the support you have shown me. I am very appreciative of your confidence in me, and I intend to show you that it is not ill-placed. I also hope you have enjoyed your freedom thus far, and my goal is to ensure that you may keep it from here forward. But enough pleasantries and small talk. I did not come here to give a horribly long and tiresome speech. I have come with a proposition for each and every one of you: revenge."

Everyone shifted in their seats, and Walter continued.

"I'm quite certain that you all know who I am talking about. Miss Kim Possible has foiled plots and prevented world domination for a number of you, on multiple occasions. At my own expense, she has only succeeded once, since only once have I tried, but I don't intend to fail a second time. Each of your skills is necessary to obtaining what we seek, and I will need each of you to aid us in this endeavor. Dr. Drakken!"

"Yes?"

"Your cloning technique will be the primary crux in this undertaking. I hope to provide some of the funds to rebuild your device, and with it, we shall clone Team Possible. Señor Senior!"

"What can I do for you?" Replied the distinct voice of the millionaire.

"I cannot provide all of the funds myself. I will need your help to purchase some of the necessary supplies. This will include mercenaries and henchmen. We will also need to re-hire a previous employee of mine. Do you know Doctor Nathan Vellick?"

"The Nano-scientist?"

"The same. I have told you all that Miss Possible has foiled me once? Well, you all know of her sidekick and boyfriend, young Mr. Ronald Stoppable. He was the true danger to my plans; I know for certain that I could have broken Miss Possible eventually, and were it not for her friend, I most certainly would have succeeded. However, young Stoppable possessed some sort of supernatural gift, a power that allowed him to incapacitate both myself and all of my men in matter of seconds."

Professor Dementor spoke. "Every time I've seen Stoppable, he was nothing but a joke and it is because of his silliness that I can capture Kim. You cannot tell me that he is this dangerous!"

Drakken glanced at the professor, then at Baron, knowing exactly what Ron was capable of, but knowing that of all of the people in the room, only Shego, Monkey Fist, Baron, and Owens had _seen_ the power that Ron possessed; Drakken had, of course, heard all of the details from Shego, but he himself had not actually seen the boy's ability.

Walter simply replied: "Not in my experience. The boy was only seconds from killing me a year ago, and the only reason he did not was that he was more concerned for Miss Possible's life."

Monkey Fist was the next to speak. "I know of this power young Stoppable wields. As a matter of fact, a smaller portion of it courses my own body. But before I explain, perhaps it would be best for you to finish explaining your plan. You were telling us about Dr. Vellick."

Walter nodded and continued. "My man, Rick managed to wound young Stoppable several times with a revolver. Ronald ended up in the hospital for weeks with critical injuries, and it was due to those injuries that I was able to manipulate young Stoppable's medication at the hospital. You see, I hired Dr. Vellick quite some time ago, long before my first attempt at world domination. He created two series of nanobots, one that was tailored specifically to Ronald's brainwaves, and another to Kimberly's. Should the two of them prove more troublesome than anticipated, I would administer the nanobot serum and allow the little devices to take effect. In this manner, Team Possible would gradually lose all free will. When the time was right, the nanobots would activate and give me absolute control over both children. However, after witnessing the power that young Ronald holds, I decided that I didn't need Miss Possible. Ronald's power would be more than enough to aid me in my endeavor."

"And what about Kimmie? She's part of this, too, isn't she?"

"Indeed, Shego. In fact, I fully intend to give you a few hours alone with her. After all, it's only right that after defeating you so many times, she should experience the very pain she has administered to you."

Shego grinned with satisfaction and crossed her arms. "Good. It would be a pity if she died before then."

Walter nodded, knowing that since the woman was a very valuable ally, Shego's satisfaction would be incredibly important during the next week.

"Now, then!" He continued. "Back to the topic of Team Possible's demise. I was telling you that young Ronald's body has been invaded by a microscopic army. Dr. Vellick's work is already taking over Ronald's body. Last year, I paid one of my men to pose as a doctor in the hospital and administer the nanobot serum to Ronald while he was a patient at Middleton Memorial Healthcare. These devices have been. . . how do I put this? . . . _colonizing_ his brain stem and cerebellum for the past year. Within the week, and that's as long as it should take us to prepare, Ronald's mind will be ready for us to control. After he is ours to use as we will, we can proceed with the next phase of the plan."

Everyone around the table carefully processed everything Baron had said. One of their arch enemies under their very control! And that was only a small portion of the plan. They knew that in seven short days, when the final pieces of their puzzle fell into place, they could easily be ruling the entire globe.

Shego's voice again permeated the room. "What is the rest of the plan, Mr. Baron? At some point you must want to kill Ron; he will eventually outlive his usefulness."

Baron smiled. "Ah, yes. Correct you are, Shego, and I shall explain to you all, the exact blueprint for my plan. But first, I must finish outlining the roles that each of you are to play in it."

Everyone nodded again.

"Right, then. As I stated before, Dr. Drakken, your cloning technique is very important. We will need your clone formula, copies of your improved mind-control chip, and as many of your henchmen as you can still contact. Señor Senior, as I stated before, Nathan Vellick is another huge asset. He is the one who will help us with our nanotechnology and with any problems that may arise while Ronald is here in our midst. Gemini and Professor Dementor, the two of you each still have a small army of henchmen?"

Both men nodded.

"Good. They, too, will be needed. We need to have enough men to dissuade anyone from interfering. That leaves Monkey Fist."

"What can I do?"

"Your monkey warriors will make a wonderful and exotic addition to our army. With them, our ranks will be diverse enough to leave any attacker confused, even if they should overpower a large number of our human allies. I will also need you to tell me what you know about Ronald's power."

"Absolutely."

Drakken interrupted. "While we're on the topic of strange powers and exotic creatures, I believe there is something you need to know before you attempt to set everything into motion."

Baron raised an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"Kim Possible had help last time she defeated me."

Baron's expression changed into one of interest. "Please, Doctor, enlighten me. I would hate to be surprised again. I'm sure you understand."

"Absolutely. You see, I was about to clone Miss Possible and destroy her when the power in my lair failed. A few seconds later, one light came back on, and there was a boy, standing right in the middle of my lair. I commanded one of my Shego clones to seize him, but he stepped behind a pile of my storage crates. When the clone followed him, it was burned away by a dragon."

Everyone around the table shifted in their seats, and several scoffed in disbelief. Walter's expression changed again, this time into skepticism. "Really, Dr. Drakken; you don't-"

"It's true." Shego interrupted. "I saw it to. It burned up the cloning machine. There was also this _thing_. I don't know what it was, but it looked like a lizard and a cobra blended together with some squid thrown in. It pinned me to the floor and screamed in my face. I'd never been scared before, but that thing was something else. I almost passed out."

"Mmm-hmm." Baron seemed to think for a moment. Everyone else had become silent.

Drakken continued. "There was also a second boy there. He had a pair of bat wings, and fangs and claws, like he was part bat or something."

"I see." Baron murmured. "Is that all?"

Drakken shook his head. "The kid that showed up first, he touched me on the back of my neck and paralyzed me. I couldn't move as long as his skin was in contact with mine. I think he can manipulate electricity on some level. I think he was the one who turned off the lights."

"A technopath." Baron said.

"What?" The word was almost a whisper, spoken by several of the other villains as they digested the information.

"A technopath." Baron repeated. "The boy is a technopath. I'm not certain about the other individuals, but I have numerous sources. I can contact some of them and find out what exactly these things are. Drakken, I will need you to describe as much as you can so we can plan for them. If they show up this time, we will be prepared."


	6. Further Preparations

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 6: Further Preparations**

"I see." Said Baron. "If we could capture one or all of these new _heroes,_ we should be able to create an even greater advantage for ourselves. I'll get my people on this immediately. If these newcomers have any enemies of their own, we can recruit them as well. With a promise of victory over their foes, they'll come running to our aid."

Shego sighed and cracked her knuckles. "This sounds promising. We might actually win!"

"Indeed." Baron answered. "However, we should finish this meeting so we can begin preparations. All right, then. I will outline the remainder of the plan for you.

"You already know of the nanobots. The rest of my plan involved cloning Team Possible, much like yours, Doctor Drakken, but instead of killing them, I planned on holding them hostage. With them in our hands, the world has no choice but to bow to our whims."

"Wait." Señor Senior Junior cut in. "How do we not know that these people will not be willing to kill Kim Possible in order to stop us?"

"Simple, young man." Replied Baron. "Team Possible has saved the world on countless occasions. Every person on this planet owes Kimberly and Ronald their lives. Killing them would betray that debt, and no decent human being would cross such a line."

The rich teen thought for a moment, then nodded. "I see. You plan on using Team Possible's kindness against them, in a roundabout sort of way."

"Precisely. Now, as I was saying: The first order of business is to prevent Global Justice from interfering. We have several options. We could take the straightforward approach and simply attack their headquarters in Middleton; through this method, we might also take the entire facility hostage. However, this approach is far too risky. We would risk exposure and lose our anonymity, and by losing our anonymity, we would lose the element of surprise. This approach would also leave us open to attack from any agents not within Global Justice headquarters during the time of the attack.

"Option two: We plant a mole within Global Justice. This mole would be equipped with a computer virus designed to cripple GJ's entire communications and data systems, not to mention send the security and defense systems into disarray. Any prisoners being held within the confines of the facility would be released to do as they wish with the agents who hold them, and Global Justice would be so preoccupied with those problems to pay us any mind.

"There are advantages and disadvantages involved in both of these plans, but the greatest setback is that we also _need _Global Justice. They will be crucial in our capture of Kim Possible and Ronald Stoppable."

Professor Dementor half-raised his hand, then thought better of it and placed it back on the table. "Perhaps we simply lead them to Gemini? Global Justice has been trying to track him down for weeks, but they've always been a step behind. If we lead them on something of a wild goose-chase, then they'll be out of our way."

"Yes." Dr. Drakken replied. "If we distract them with a real threat, they'll be even less likely to believe that something suspicious is going on."

"Then it's settled." Announced Baron. "We provide a few false leads that they eventually catch up with Gemini, leaving Global Justice preoccupied with a true threat, but they won't be so distracted as to ignore a couple of _new_ criminals."

"New?" Asked Gemini. "What do you mean _new_?"

"You shall see soon enough." Baron replied. "But for now, I need everyone to begin preparations."

Kim groaned, rolled over in bed, and slapped her alarm clock. Then with a twinge of annoyance, she realized that the alarm clock was not the device making the noise. She reached beyond the timepiece and lifted the Kimmunicator off of her nightstand.

"What up, Wade?"

"Sorry to wake you, Kim, but there's a problem: a hostage crisis and robbery at a bank in London. I haven't been able to confirm the identities of the perpetrators, but I should gain access to the cameras soon. The security software is tough, but I'm running a hacking program now."

Although she was half-asleep, Kim's interest was piqued. "A hacking program? Wade!"

"Don't act so surprised, Kim." Wade grinned. "I'm the one who wrote it. Anyway, I've got a ride set up with Bernice. I'll let Ron know and you can stop for him on your way to the airport."

"Thanks, Wade."

The Kimmunicator screen faded to black as Kim swung her legs off of her bed and hopped to her feet. She strode to her closet for her mission clothes and knapsack, and ten minutes later, she was parked outside her boyfriend's house, watching Ron approach across his front yard. He opened the door and got into the car, then shut the door and proceeded to fasten his seatbelt as Kim pulled away from the curb.

Dr. Director turned off the main view screen and turned to face the fifty Global Justice agents gathered in front of her. They looked as perplexed as she felt, and she understood why entirely too well. She took a deep breath and began to explain.

"I know you're all as confused as I am, but every one of us knows what must be done. We have laws and rules that govern what we do, and this situation will be treated no differently. Your transport is waiting in the hangar. Everyone get going; I'll track our lead to Gemini and your reserves will be here when you return."

A collective 'Yes, Ma'am!' went up from the gathered agents before they began to file out of the room. Agent Will Du, who was standing next to Dr. Director, leaned a little closer and spoke in low tone.

"Director, why do you think they-?"

"I don't know, Agent Du." The reply was curt. "Why does anyone do what they do? We just have to hope that fifty agents is enough to capture the two of them. If it's not, we have a problem."

Will nodded and watched the remainder of the agents file out of the room.

Kim and Ron thanked Bernice for her services and left the passenger area of the plane. They entered the onboard elevator and waited for the doors to close before pressing the button for the desired level. As the cables conveyed the teens to the cargo area, Kim pressed the call button on the Kimmunicator. Wade answered almost immediately.

"Hey, Kim. You're getting close to the drop zone. You can jump in about three minutes. After that, your car should have enough range to fly you the rest of the way to  
London. After that, though, you'll either have to have it delivered back home for repairs, or I'll have to send one of my drones out to do the job."

"Thanks, Wade. I don't know what's going on with it. I can normally fly it across the Atlantic no problem, but the engine's been acting funny lately."

"It probably just needs maintenance. Anyway, you may want to buckle in. Bernice is going to open the door soon, and you'll want to be inside your car for that."

Kim nodded as the Kimmunicator went dark and slipped the device back into its home in her right cargo pocket. She and Ron got into the car and fastened their seatbelts. No sooner were they strapped in than the rear hatch opened and revealed a slightly overcast England day. Kim toggled a switch on the dashboard and her trunk door folded away to reveal a small jet engine. From the vehicle's undercarriage, a pair of narrow wings telescoped outward.

With the flip of a switch, the little jet powered up and accelerated out of the cargo area of the plane. There was minor turbulence in the wake of the larger aircraft, but Kim's car was soon out of the way, and she descended through the clouds and down into the city of London, England. A small navigation screen folded upward from the dashboard and Wade's face appeared.

"I've indicated your destination on this map." Wade's room vanished to show a map of London's streets. A red dot glowed brightly a few inches from the blue one indicating Kim's car.

"Thanks, Wade. We can take it from-" Kim was interrupted by the sound of something smashing through Wade's door. "What was that?" She asked, still unable to see her friend due to the onscreen map.

Wade began to reply, but was quickly cut off. "It's-"

A slightly familiar voice interrupted. "Not a word. Wade Load, you're coming with me. Kim Possible, if you're still on the line and if you can hear me, we're coming for you, too."

Then the screen went black.

Kim blinked in surprise and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "Who was that? I could swear I've heard that voice before."

"It does seem familiar." Ron replied. "But we can't do anything about it now. We have to focus on the mission at hand." Ron reached forward and called up the data that Wade had left on the screen before being interrupted.

Kim righted her course and accelerated toward the streets below.

Ten minutes later, Kim parked her vehicle behind a line of police cruisers outside the London bank and approached the officer in charge. He greeted her with a smile and warm handshake.

"Ah, Miss Possible! We still do not know who the villains are, but they've taken the entirety of the employees and the customers inside the bank hostage and are threatening to kill them if we so much as touch our radios."

"No big." Kim replied with her signature line. "Ron and I can get in through the roof. Once we're inside, we'll catch the thieves and let you in."

The officer nodded, glad for the support and the help of the famous youth.

Without further discussion, Kim and Ron circled the ring of police vehicles and walked a block up the street, then circled behind the buildings and into the alley there. The retraced their steps back toward the bank and briefly examined the structure from behind.

Ron approached the wall and braced the heel of his right foot against the rough brick. He spaced his left foot a short distance in front of himself and cupped his hands, indicating he would give Kim a boost.

Kim didn't stop to think; knowing what he had planned, she ran toward Ron and planted her right foot in his hands. Drawing on the power of the Lotus Blade in his pocket, Ron vaulted Kim upwards with just enough force to send her to the roof, but not over it. The cheerleader landed on top of the building as though she had stepped off of an elevator. Ron, channeling the Blade's power to his legs, leapt to the roof on his own.

The two of them quickly found the main vent and opened it with Kim's laser lipstick, then crawled inside and, guided by information stored in the Kimmunicator, made their way toward the bank's vault.

As soon as they were above the desired room, they burned another hole in the vent and dropped through the opening. The vault had still not been opened. Kim crept to the door and pressed her ear to the cool metal surface. She could only faintly hear a man speaking. "Okay, okay! Don't hurt them! I'll open it for you!"

Kim backed away from the door and stood in the center of the vault; Ron produced the Lotus Blade and shifted it into its normal katana form. The two of them waited for about sixty seconds while the locks on the bank's enormous safe were accessed and bypassed. As the huge slab of metal swung inward, and both Kim and Ron stared in surprise as they watched themselves enter the vault.


	7. Un-expectations

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 7: Un-expectations**

The man who had obviously been threatened into opening the door slumped forward and fell to the floor, unconscious. Apparently one of the copies struck him down after he had opened the safe.

Kim's mouth dropped open as she stared in disbelief at the two figures in front of her. They were obviously clones, but only Drakken would attempt to perform the same scheme more than once, and she and Ron had stopped him only three weeks before. The fact that new clones were standing in front of them _now_ meant that Drakken had already escaped from Global Justice's custody and was hard at work reconstructing his earlier project.

For the first time in a long time, Kim and Ron exchanged words before a fight.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"This is bad."

"Very."

"Do you think Drakken's enhanced his clones again?"

"It's likely."

Kim half-snorted in irritation.

"Until we know for sure," Ron warned, "don't let them do anything more than block."

Kim nodded in acknowledgement, settled into one of her signature combat stances, and poised herself on the balls of her feet in preparation for the coming fight. Ron, meanwhile, slipped the Lotus Blade out of his pocket and transformed it into a pair of iron sparring tonfa batons, which he shifted into position along his arms. The strong and slender iron bars extended several inches past Ron's elbows.

Each Kim and each Ron watched the other, daring their respective counterparts to initiate combat. The staring contest lasted no more than three seconds. The false Ron took a single step forward and moved into a handspring; it vaulted itself into the air and launched itself at Kim, while the fake Kim targeted Ron, utilizing every one of the real cheerleader's Kung Fu skills, plus a few that Ron recognized as belonging to Shego. It wasn't long before he and the 'unKim' were nothing more than a pair of blurs, each one swirling in its own unique patterns in an attempt to outsmart and incapacitate the other.

The battle lasted for perhaps a few seconds before Ron managed to knock his opponent back a step; he followed through with a secondary strike, a twist-and-jab move that would have broken the clone's sternum, but Ron's left elbow never connected. The clone had simply feinted, tricking Ron into believing that it had stumbled, when in reality it was preparing for another strike of its own. It allowed itself to fall backwards, rolling along its back and into a second handspring. It vaulted itself up and back, then landed on its feet and leaped again, this time over Ron's head and behind him. Ron tracked the movement, waiting for the unKim to turn and rush him, but it was headed for the real Kim.

Ron didn't hesitate. With a twist and a flick of his wrist, he transformed his right tonfa into a dagger and threw it at the retreating clone. At the same time, he shouted a warning. "Kim! Watch your right side!"

Without so much as glancing in Ron's direction, Kim grabbed the unRon and hurled it at the unKim, which had turned mid-stride and snatched Ron's dagger out of the air. The blade rested between the clone's left index and middle fingers, caught by the hilt of the weapon; the blade's super sharp edge hadn't even touched the copy's skin. A split second after stopping Ron's attack, the unKim sidestepped and caught the unRon's outstretched arms, spinning in a brief circle to maintain its momentum before releasing it and sending it back toward Kim. Then it primed its new weapon, which had disappeared during its encounter with Kim, and turned back to Ron.

For a few seconds, everything happened so quickly that Ron almost lost track of the motions. The unRon missed Kim, who had dodged out of the way with inches to spare, and rebounded off of a wall, leaving faint footprints in the hardened metal barriers of the walk-in safe as it launched itself forward once more. Kim dodged again, and then resumed normal hand-to-hand combat with the clone.

He saw nothing more as he closed in again with the unKim and began fending off a new wave of attacks. The dagger wasn't an issue for very long, since all Ron had to do was recall it with his mind, but he was almost stabbed twice before he could regain enough focus to summon the weapon. In fact, he wasn't entirely certain that the mystic Blade itself hadn't prevented the clone from gutting him then and there. For that, he was grateful. He'd already experienced the displeasure of being shot; he wasn't so certain that being stabbed was any less unpleasant.

Ron transformed his dagger back into its tonfa form and flipped it into position along his forearm as he blocked a high kick with his left. The clone hopped backward to prepare another blow. Ron was about to take the offensive with a spinning drop-kick when the familiar sound of a controlled explosion rumbled through the building. He, Kim, and the clones paused and turned toward the source of the noise.

Global Justice had arrived.

"They're in the safe!" yelled someone in the main lobby.

Drakken had no doubt given his clones incredible strength, with orders _not_ to kill either of the teen heroes. Both Kim and Ron would have been dead otherwise, but there was nothing stopping them from harming anyone else who happened to get in the way. With that in mind, Ron turned back toward the unKim, intent on taking it down before the GJ agents walked into a potential kill-box. It was gone.

Ron glanced in Kim's direction to find that her opponent had likewise vanished, while she in turn looked at him. In a moment of bittersweet realization, understanding washed through the teens' minds. They stared at one another, unable to speak amid the convoluted plethora of thoughts and questions wrestling for attention within their respective minds.

"Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, you are both under arrest!"

Kim and Ron turned their attention to the door of the safe to see a middle-aged man in a Global Justice uniform standing with an assault weapon equipped with sedation rounds. The man was obviously a GJ veteran who had seen numerous high-risk missions, and lived to keep the secrets. No doubt the rest of the team that followed carried the same qualifications.

Ron began to sidle toward Kim. The man's weapon was immediately trained on Ron's chest. "Don't move!"

Ignoring the agent, Ron continued to inch toward Kim, his arms half-raised in preparation for self-defense should the man attempt to confront him.

Instead of firing his weapon, as Ron had suspected, the man sidestepped to his right to allow his comrades access to the interior of the safe. The teens counted as twenty-nine additional Global Justice agents, each one at least as experienced as the man at the door, entered the safe and encircled Team Possible. Their own weapons, the majority of which were various types of bolo-guns or hand-held net cannons, were primed and ready to fire.

He was about to whisper something to Kim when she spoke to the lead GJ agent. "I know what you're thinking, and I'm not going to try and tell you otherwise, but you have to understand that we can't come with you."

"Like hell you can't! You have no other choice! No lay down all of your weapons, communications devices, and other equipment and raise your hands over your head. There's no reason to make this harder than it should be."

"Fine." Replied Kim.

Ron was shocked. "Kim! You know we can't go with them! If we get arrested, who's going to stop Drakken?"

"Just trust me, Ron." Said Kim; then she lowered her voice to a whisper so faint, Ron almost couldn't hear it. "Wrap your arm around my waist and get ready."

Ron transferred his left tonfa to his right hand and merged it with the other, glad to have the Lotus Blade in one piece again. As he did so, Kim began speaking to the GJ man again.

"Alright, you got it. Just don't shoot!" She reached into her right pocket and pulled out the hair dryer grappling gun that Wade had made for her. She looked up into Ron's eyes for a moment, as though she were trying to fight back tears, and he used the cue to wrap his arm around her waist in a caring, loving gesture. She brushed away a nonexistent tear with her right hand, then pretended to recover from her emotional 'break-down.' With one quick movement, she lifted her left arm, fired her grappling gun, and pressed the button that would haul herself and Ron into the same vent that they had used to enter the bank.

None of the Global Justice agents uttered so much as a cry of alarm, and none of them hesitated in the next course of action. Those with tranquilizer weapons moved toward the vent and fired upward, but Ron had already transformed the Lotus Blade into a rounded shield and was fending off the darts of sedative. Kim, meanwhile, climbed into the vent and reached down to help her partner as he attempted to heave himself upward with a single arm. Somehow, both of them made it into the main ventilation shaft without being struck by any of the darts.

Ron turned the shield over and placed it over the opening of the vent, then waited as Kim put away her grappler and activated the Kimmunicator. She pulled up the directions they had used to make their way into the vault. As soon as the mini-map was in place on the screen, she began to make her way through the vent, crawling over Ron's shield to get to the other side of the opening and continuing until she reached the first intersection in the route. She turned to make sure that Ron was following.

"I know who broke into Wade's room." She declared before making a left turn.

Ron's deduction came as no surprise. "Agent Will Du."

"Right. As soon as I saw that GJ agent, I remembered Will, and realized it was his voice coming over Wade's channel."

"Me, too." Ron paused, then said. "One question."

"Yeah?"

"Are we going to take an alternate route out of here? I think Global Justice is smart enough to have agents waiting on the roof."

"We're going to have to. It shouldn't be a problem since I have a map here."

Neither of them said anything more as they made their way through the bank's vent. Finally, after several twists, turns, and a few ups and downs to confuse any pursuers, Kim stopped at an air-intake fan. Ron could smell the city air outside and suddenly felt like he was being smothered inside the confines of the metal shaft.

A minute later, both of them were climbing out of the back wall of the bank. Kim retracted her grappling hook and tucked the hair dryer into her pocket, then began to inch her way along the alley wall, hoping to stay out of sight of the Global Justice agents long enough to make it back to her vehicle. No such luck.

The two teens had sneaked several blocks to the east of the bank before doubling back through the alley on the other side of the street, and by the time they made it back to the police line across from the bank, Global Justice had placed several agents around her car. She turned back to Ron. "We'll have to find another way out of here."

"I don't think so!" Came the response of another agent. Kim wheeled back around to find five Global Justice agents standing in the mouth of the alley. Three of them had net guns equipped with tazer-nets; the other two had tranquilizers. A second voice came from the back of the alley, opposite where Ron would be standing behind her.

"Both of you are under arrest!"

Kim didn't wait for the secret agents to make the next move. She pulled a lipstick tube from her left cargo pocket and sprayed its contents all over the men in front of her. The constricting pink goo engulfed the agents and began to glue them to one another, and as it tightened its grip, one of the net guns went off, half-electrocuting them in the process. Kim turned to help Ron, who was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with his own five opponents, whom he had recently disarmed. What remained of the men's weapons lay on the ground, cut to pieces by the power of the legendary Katana.

She hadn't made it two steps when Ron shouted at her to stay back. "Watch the street! They might send others!"


	8. Swap Meet

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 8: Swap Meet**

Ron had been right.

Kim turned to find eight other Global Justice agents surrounding the mouth of the alley, while the team from inside the bank had already begun filing out the front door and were moving to join their companions. Those who approached first began to aid their goo-covered team-mates in removing the substance, while their quickly-approaching allies took up defensive positions nearby; Kim pointed her lipstick tube at them and once again thumbed the button that dispensed the pink fluid, but nothing happened.

'_Of all the times for this thing to go empty!' _She thought. She tossed the device aside and decided that it was time to go on the offensive. Leaving Ron to deal with the five agents he had just disarmed, she took a quick half-step backward and abruptly shifted her weight forward, performing a handspring that sent her over the heads of the first three agents. She had calculated her jump perfectly.

Kim landed squarely on the shoulders of the largest person in the group, a burly man with a lot of muscle. And a lot of weight. As she landed, Kim curled her calves under the man's arms and used her momentum to hurl own body weight forward, tipping her opponent off-balance and using the leverage created by her legs to throw him backward into the nearest cluster of agents, which happened to be the three farthest from the alley. The four agents were reduced to a heap of tangled limbs and jumbled weapons.

As she landed, Kim somersaulted forward and hopped to her feet, turning to engage the four agents helping their pink-covered teammates. As she predicted, they had stopped pulling at the constricting goo in order to attempt to take her down. Without a second thought, Kim threw herself to the left and rolled to the side as several tranquilizer darts whizzed past. She bounced to her feet again and jump-flipped backwards, placing more distance between herself and her opponents. As she hit the ground, she saw Ron exit the alley and engage the remainder of the GJ agents crossing the street, his Lotus Blade in the form of a club-shield combination.

Refocusing her thoughts onto the matter at hand, Kim raised her hands into a combat stance and poised herself on the balls of her feet, waiting for her opponents to make the first move. Two other Global Justice agents had joined the original four she had dodged away from, and of those six individuals, two had net guns, while the remainder carried the all-too-common tranquilizer weapons. Kim took a deep breath and cleared her mind, watching as each of the agents as they attempted to encircle her and trap her, placing themselves so that those with the net guns were on either side of her. The agents holding tranq-guns stood in groups of three both in front of and behind her. Kim waited for the tell-tale sign of action: a deep, steadying breath which would allow the agents to steady their aim and fire their weapons more accurately.

_There!_

Kim leapt into the air as three weapons discharged, listening as the drug-treated needles whiz through the air beneath her. Her self-satisfaction at having avoided capture, however, was short lived, for several other things had happened at the same time, leaving her with a split second to think _'Oh, crud.'_

First, while three of the agents had fired their darts into empty space, they had carefully aimed their weapons so as not to accidentally hit one of their comrades as she dodged; every agent remained standing. Second, while Kim remained suspended in the air, the remaining agent with a tranquilizer pointed it upward and pulled the trigger; his aim proved true, and the needle struck Kim in the left side. Third, as the sedative took effect and Kim's body relaxed, one of the men with a net gun also primed his weapon and fired at the cheerleader.

Kim felt her body jerked sideways as the net enveloped her body and carried her toward the outer wall of the nearby building. The weighted claws attached to the corners of the net wrapped themselves into a knot and buried themselves in the brick wall, sending a charge of electricity through the net's fibers as they struck solid material. Already half unconscious, Kim didn't have enough energy to shout in pain, but as the opposing effects of the electric current and the sedative fought for control over her body, she thought her muscles might tear themselves apart.

As she drifted into unconsciousness, Kim watched Ron as he battled twenty-nine Global Justice agents in front of a London city bank, countering sedation needles and dodging electrically charged nets at every turn. The last thing she remembered seeing was a flicker of movement on the roof-top of the bank before she drifted into her forced sleep.

Dr. Director turned away from the main view-screen in the Global Justice briefing chamber. "Thank you, Agent Nelson. We'll have a team of medics waiting for the injured individuals when you arrive. However, your primary objective is to return to Headquarters; I'll have additional agents prepared to escort Team Possible to their holding cells."

"Thank you, Ma'am. Over and out."

The screen went black, but the director of Global Justice was already walking out of the room. There were preparations to be made.

Agent Gregory Nelson pressed the button that ended the call to Global Justice Headquarters and returned to his seat within the agency's giant troop carrier. He would never get used to flying in this thing.

The aircraft was large enough to carry all fifty agents within his current team, ten captives, and an additional twenty personnel. The cabin required at least two pilots at all times to maintain the enormous vehicle's systems and monitor the large payload contained in its cargo area. None of the weapons in the aircraft were of a nuclear nature, but should the occupants be forced to unleash them, the results would be catastrophic.

Of the ten 'seats' designated for captives, two were occupied by none other than the still-unconscious Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, who had been among the hardest people he had ever had to capture. He knew that his was the reason Dr. Director had assigned _him_ to the task rather than another agent. Even Agent Du, with is incredible knack for success, did not have the necessary experience for an assignment as important as capturing Team Possible.

The loudspeaker crackled to life, and one of the pilots spoke to the team of Global Justice agents. "We have an unidentified contact approaching at twelve o'clock. They have attempted to hail us, but we have not yet responded. I am reading some sort of aircraft, high-tech, with a damaged port-side engine, potential may-day call. Respond?"

Agent Nelson didn't hesitate. "Respond. We can't leave them stranded over the Atlantic Ocean. If their craft can hover, bring us close and we'll get their passengers aboard."

"Aye-aye!"

There was a distinctive click as the radio was turned off.

"Alright!" Gregory yelled. "You heard what I said! Prepare to aid the individuals in the approaching aircraft! We may have to give up some of our seats, but it's a necessary risk if we're going to help these people!"

Several seconds later, there was an increasing sense of deceleration as the Global Justice craft slowed to a halt. The men and women within the GJ jet were soon able to hear the whine of smaller engines outside. Something tugged at the back of Gregory's mind, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was bothering him. He brushed the feeling aside and stood as he waited for the door at the rear of the bay to open.

Finally one of the pilots activated the hydraulic, and the hatch at the rear of the Global Justice plane began to descend. As the enormous door opened, a sleek aircraft came into view. However, instead of a wounded, struggling machine, the GJ agents were met with an advanced, perfectly functional plane. The smaller craft had turned so that its own rear hatch was aligned with that of the larger vehicle's and before Gregory could give the order to move away, a small, fist-sized object landed at his feet and exploded into a cloud of purple mist.

"Keep it steady, Shego!" Monkey Fist shouted over the roar of the two jets' engines; the surface upon which he stood steadied itself. "Right! We're ready! Deploy the bridge!"

Shego reached out and punched a button next to the plane's joystick and a metal ramp telescoped outward from the rear of the craft. As it came into contact with the hatch door of the Global Justice plane, a pair of clamps at each side of the ramp unfolded from the metal and latched onto the agents' plane, effectively attaching the two aircraft to one another. "Go!" She yelled.

Monkey Fist walked across the ramp, followed closely by a clone each of Kim, Ron, and their naked rodent friend Rufus. Once the group was inside the Global Justice plane, Monkey Fist began to issue orders.

"You two will act as Kim and Ron for the next few days. Make it convincing! We don't want Global Justice to catch on before we get a chance to free you. Now, free those two and take their places. And don't forget to place the clone of the mole rat in the cage."

While the clones went to work following orders, Monkey Fist turned his attention to the semi-conscious agents sitting around him. Each one stared straight ahead, eyes open, completely unresponsive as their quarry was stolen right out from under their noses. The surgically-altered villain began to speak. "This substance will wear off in an hour. When it does, you will not remember any of this. There was no stranded aircraft. No one entered this area. You will proceed as you were when you left London. Pilot, acknlowledge!"

The GJ pilot responded over the intercom. "Instructions acknowledged!"

Monkey Fist turned to look at what was obviously the agent in charge. "Sit down." The man complied. "Where is the sword?"

The man pointed to a pair of clamps above his now re-occupied seat, where the Lotus Blade had been secured in its scabbard. The villain reached forward and took the sword. "Give me the duplicate!" He shouted at the unRon. The clone unclipped a copy of the Lotus Blade from its belt and tossed it to Monkey Fist, who placed it where the original had been. _'Outstanding!' _He thought. _'And now I even have the Lotus Blade in hand! This Walter Baron is certainly a very good business man if he can work with so many people and give them all what they want!'_

Monkey Fist approached the clones and helped them with the last of their restraints. He slipped Rufus into one of the real Ron's pockets, tossed one teen over each of his shoulders, and returned to his own craft.

Shego, who had been monitoring the entire ordeal from her place in the pilot's seat, retracted the plane's ramp and closed the rear hatch. Finally, she waited for Monkey Fist to finish restraining Team Possible and their rodent before she accessed a computer attached to the pilot's station. She remotely closed the Global Justice plane's rear hatch, typed in a set of auto-pilot commands, and sent the plane on the remainder of its journey across the Atlantic. When the fools recovered from Professor Dementor's mind control vapor, they wouldn't even realize that anything had changed. Their perception of time would cause them to believe that they had flown nonstop from London to Middleton without so much as a hitch.

Rushing wind, clanging metal, a sound like an explosion. Perhaps they were part of a dream, but she couldn't see what the dream might have been. There was only noise.

Then it was silent.

Kim opened her eyes to the interior of some kind of aircraft, although the exact type eluded her; the area she was sitting in was fairly dark. She could hear the faint sound of the engines running outside the craft, but the sound was hardly more than a whisper. Slightly louder than the plane's engines, however, was the sound of breathing. Kim turned her head to the left and sensed more than saw the still-unconscious Ron slumped over next to her. His breaths were deep, a sure sign that he was well and uninjured.

Kim was about to reach up and touch his cheek when she realized that she had been restrained; she was sitting in a seat of some sort, while her arms were suspended above her head, her wrists bound together with a plastic zip-tie looped through a steel ring connected to the wall above her. Her ankles had also been bound with plastic and connected to the floor of the aircraft. No doubt Ron was restrained in a like fashion.

The memories from her earlier fight with Global Justice began to return, and with the coalescing recollections came a sense of confusion. She and Ron had already realized that whoever had sent their clones to the London bank was trying to frame them, but why? Obviously it was Drakken's cloning method that had been used to create the duplicates, but who had freed Drakken, and why _retry_ a failed method of world domination?

'_Maybe there's more to it than just the clones…' _Kim thought.

Perhaps framing the teens and having them captured by Global Justice was an attempt at confining them, keeping them out of the way while Drakken took over the world? No, that was wrong. Or at least, it wasn't completely _right. _Whoever freed Drakken had a part in the whole ordeal, which meant that Drakken wasn't the only one involved, and certainly the mysterious individual who had saved him had freed Shego as well.

She would just have to ask when Global Justice got them back to Middleton.


	9. Expected Guests

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 9: Expected Guests**

Kim waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Ron finally woke, and then briefly panicked when he found that he couldn't move. As soon as he had calmed down, Kim asked him how he felt, to which Ron replied that he was fine. Then the two of them continued to wait.

They didn't know how long it took, but finally the jet began to slow. There was a jolt as it set down on solid ground, and then the engines began to wind down. Whatever surface the plane had landed on began to move.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.**

Shego maneuvered the jet over the landing platform and carefully set it down. As soon as the wheels hit the steel plating, she reached forward and flipped the switch that initiated engine shutdown. She watched as a clear barrier formed between the jet and the outside air, then felt a light jolt as the platform was pulled beneath the waves of the Pacific ocean.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.**

Drakken monitored the landing platform as it sank deeper and deeper beneath the water. A squid swam by, briefly obstructing the view of his deep-water surveillance camera, but then it was gone, and still the bubble-encased plane made its way downward. Several minutes later, the platform carried the jet into a raised 'room' which was settled atop another structure on the ocean floor. Drakken pressed a button on his control panel, which cause the two halves of the room's 'roof' to separate from the outer walls of the structure and retake their place _atop_ it. As soon as the roof was in place and the area sealed, Drakken activated the water pumps and restored breathable atmosphere to that section of the sub-oceanic compound. He removed the bubble-like barrier and pressed another series of buttons which lowered the landing platform again, this time into the aircraft bay within the main structure, where automated towing units moved the jet off of the platform and into its designated storage area.

Once the process was complete, Drakken secured the control panel with his password and stepped down from the raised catwalk. Walter Baron waited at the bottom of the steps, his arms folded in a gesture of slight impatience.

"I see Shego and Monkey Fist have returned." The millionaire villain remarked, having been watching the process from the same enormous view screen Drakken had been monitoring.

"Yes," Drakken replied, "but we'll have to meet them in the aircraft bay to find out if they were successful. I haven't had an opportunity yet to install cameras there."

"No matter." Baron responded. "I would prefer to meet Mr. Stoppable and Miss Possible face to face, anyway." He raised his right wrist to his mouth. "Rick, are you ready to welcome our guests?"

The reply was quick in coming. "Certainly."

Baron returned his wrist to his side and turned to Drakken. "After you." He said, gesturing for the blue-skinned villain to lead the way. Drakken strode toward the door that would take himself and Baron to the aircraft bay, pausing only long enough when he found one of his henchmen to relay the message of Kim and Ron's arrival and to ask him to alert the others.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.**

Whatever the plane was sitting on finally stopped moving. There was the distinct sound of machinery, and then it began to move again. After another brief trip, it stopped again, and then something else began to move the plane. When the noise of motion subsided and the aircraft was still again, the hatch at the rear of the plane opened and lowered itself to the floor of the hangar.

Kim expected to come face to face with Dr. Director and several dozen Global Justice agents, but her demeanor of calm preparedness dissolved into shock and hatred when she found none other than Walter Baron, Rick Owens, and an entourage of her greatest villains waiting for her outside the aircraft. However, the cheerleader was far less shocked than Baron expected, and far angrier. Her lack of fear seemed to irritate the man as she attempted to stare him down, for his brow furrowed, and the corners of his mouth moved ever so slightly downward, quirking his expression from one of smug superiority to one of quiet of rage.

Shego appeared at Kim's side, apparently having emerged from the cockpit of the plane. Monkey Fist, Lotus Blade in hand, appeared behind her, paused to glance in Ron's direction, and proceeded to exit the plane through the rear hatch. Shego turned to look at Baron, who nodded, before returning her attention to the cheerleader. "Time to unload, Pumpkin." She reached for Kim's bindings and was immediately blown out of the plane by a concussive blast of air saturated with blue light. Baron casually stepped to the side as the unconscious, half-deafened woman crashed to the floor where he had just been standing. Monkey Fist tightened his grip on the Lotus Blade, and Drakken, the Seniors, Dementor, and Gemini all flinched as Shego hit the floor in front of them; they stared at Ron in disbelief and shock. Several of Drakken's henchmen moved forward and began attending Shego, while Rick tensed and adopted a combat stance.

Kim turned her head to the left to see Ron, the source of the blast, glaring resolutely at Baron. His skin began to take on a pallor similar to Drakken's, while his eyes took on a semi-luminous golden-yellow hue.

Kim recalled several accounts of what had occurred the year before, stories that she had originally been inclined to disbelieve as exaggerations and adrenaline-induced delusions. Now, however, she began to reconsider those tales, and knew that if any of them were to be believed, Ron had almost killed Baron, as well as Owens, for the pain they had caused her. There had been stories of Ron literally kicking his way through the door of Baron's plane and standing unfazed as Rick shot him four times with a revolver, then fighting Owens while simultaneously incapacitating every one of Baron's mercenaries before finally succumbing to the wounds dealt to him by the Kung Fu expert.

She had a feeling that she was about to witness the same anger that had saved her life a year ago, and she didn't know if she should be relieved that she and Ron were about to escape, or if she should be frightened of such an uncontrollable rage. As events continued to unfold, she decided that the former was a better choice.

Ron flexed his arms, chest and shoulders, ripping the steel ring from the wall above his head, and twisted his wrists; the plastic zip-tie snapped as if it were no more than dried clay. Ron's skin remained uncut by the plastic, and the zip-tie and the ring fell into his lap. He lifted his right hand and a bright blue flame pulsed to life in his palm, casting an eerie glow upon his already-blue visage and enhancing the subtle glow of his eyes. The fire spread to envelope the rest of Ron's hand, and he touched the fire to the chains around his torso; the steel bindings turned to ash and dissipated like smoke. Maintaining the cerulean flame on his right hand, the Yamanouchi student stood and high-stepped once with each leg, pulling first his right, then his left knee into neat 90-degree angles with quick, precise motions that snapped the zip-ties looped around his ankles.

Thus completely unfettered, Ron leaned to his right and gently laid his palm on Kim's head. She felt a strange coolness cover her body and realized that Ron's conjured fire had been transferred to her, enveloping her completely and destroying her own chains and bonds as easily as they had Ron's. As soon as it completed its task, the flame extinguished itself, leaving the interior of the plane shrouded once more in shadow. Ron stepped forward and began moving toward the hatch.

Kim stood and followed, but was halted when Ron turned toward her and held up a hand as if to say "stop." She paused and waited to see what would happen next. Ron returned his attention to the aircraft hangar.

As she watched, she realized that not only were most of her greatest enemies assembled in the room outside the aircraft, but conceivably every mercenary, henchman, and body guard ever hired to labor for them had also been marshaled for the singular purpose of containing Team Possible. And judging by the look of it, they were going to need _all_ of that manpower.

"Go get Rufus." Ron said. Kim immediately turned and headed for the front of the plane. The cage in which the naked mole rat was confined was part of the plane's interior, a compartment recessed into the wall and covered by a locked grate. Kim reached forward to pick up and examine the lock, and the blue fire that Ron had conjured burst to life upon the young woman's fingertips. It made a quiet _'whoosh' _as it cloaked the lock, then went out as the device was transformed into ice, which immediately melted. Kim wiped the water from onto her pants and welcomed Rufus onto her shoulder. She noticed that the rodent's eyes possessed the same glowing yellow quality that Ron's did. She returned to her place behind Ron and the naked mole rat hopped from her shoulder to his; to Kim he almost seemed to half-glide across the wider-than-normal leaping distance.

Ron had crossed the remainder of the distance between his seat and the rear hatch of the plane, and was, as far as Kim could tell, assessing the situation at hand. Perhaps, Kim thought, his rage hadn't so consumed him that it had eaten away his logic. What she didn't realize was that the anger was only making his mind work faster and more efficiently, as it had the year before. Ron's mental abilities at current rivaled the computing power of Wade's own home-made supercomputer and even trumped the child's genius.

Kim, having never seen Ron in such a state before, felt as though she were risking an all-out war when she reached forward and touched him on the shoulder. "Ron?"

"Kim, I need you to stay out of the way. These guys hurt you, and I'm not going to let it happen again. I may not have been able to protect you before, but now I have the power to, and I fully intend to use it."

"Ron, you don't have to-"

"Don't have to kill them? I think they've already planned on killing us. I don't take that lightly."

Kim didn't have anything to say to that; she returned her attention to Baron, who was still watching the young heroes. He seemed to think it was alright for him to speak, for he said, "You seem to think that you know what I have planned for the two of you, but let me assure you both that there is far more to _our _scheme than you realize. Would you like me to tell you?"

Ron's reply was clipped. "It wouldn't do you much good. Telling us about your plan isn't going to change how it's going to end."

"Oh, I think you'll find that I'm far more prepared this particular scenario than you think." Baron shifted his gaze to Kim. "Miss Possible, have you not wondered why Ronald has become so quiet and soft-spoken over the course of the past year? I doubt it. You yourself have changed almost as much as he has, but for somewhat different reasons. While you were transformed by your encounter with me, Ronald was transformed by both his training with his Sensei at Yamanouchi and-"

Ron bristled at the mention of his friends in Japan. "How did you find out about that?"

"I have my sources." The rich man replied. He returned his attention to Kim. "At any rate, the second reason for Ronald's drastic change is me. I assumed that Team Possible would not make world conquest easy for me, especially considering the number of other villains the two of you have foiled over the years. My point is, I had a contingency plan."

"I told you already that I don't care about your plan." Ron interjected. "Your _plan _doesn't matter if it's been destroyed."

Baron scowled. "You continue insisting that you're going to stop me, and as much as I admire your determination, it's beginning to grow old. Shall I prove to you that you are powerless?" He turned to his right and addressed a man in a white lab coat; Kim briefly wondered why she hadn't noticed him before. Her bewilderment dissolved, however, when she heard the name that Baron uttered. "Dr. Vellick, would you care to set into motion the next phase of our scheme?"

"Of course." Dr. Nathan Vellick was tall and lean, perhaps a bit more than six feet tall, with short, somewhat curly dark brown hair and piercing green eyes. With a sly grin, he reached into the right pocket of his lab coat and withdrew an electronic device about the size of his open hand. To Kim, it appeared to be a remote of some kind, but caught somewhere between that of a television set and a remote control for a toy plane. She didn't know what the device was for, but she knew she was about to find out.

Dr. Vellick flipped a switch on the front of the remote.


	10. Fashionably Late

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 10: Fashionably Late**

Roy shifted his weight again, trying to relieve the increasing sensation of numbness in his backside. He had always enjoyed the sense of freedom that came with joining Karen's dragon form in the sky, but this flight was one of the longest he had ever endured, and even with the leather pseudo-saddle that she wore, he was beginning to get uncomfortable, especially since the sun was so relentless; he was certain the sunscreen he had applied wasn't working.

"You alright?" Karen called. It was always a little weird to hear a human voice come from her dragon body.

"I'm okay!" Roy shouted at the back of her head. "I'll feel better once we land!"

"Well you're in luck!" Danielle's voice was clearly broadcasted from her helmet by a set of speakers just above where her ears would be. "We're here!"

Karen slowed to give Danni a bit of a lead, and circled overhead while the teen pinpointed the exact location of Drakken's lair. Matthew and Shift circled with her, keeping their silence.

As they made their watchful circles over the water, the Darkut studied Shift, who had adopted the form of Pegasus for the duration of their flight over the ocean. The half-dragon had thought the choice was rather odd, considering the fact that the five of them were about to engage in a battle with some of the most dangerous men (and woman, for Shego would be there, too) on the planet, but she refrained from speaking for several reasons. The first was that a shapeshifter might take on a seemingly harmless form, but the abilities of a form were not determined by its appearance; the girl had told Karen many times about brightly colored birds with poisoned stingers and rabbits with hidden quills. Shapeshifters were not to be trifled with. The second reason for Karen's silence was that Shift had recently finished a tier of training with the Greater Shapeshifters, the equivalent of their race's elders, and the trainers had shown her many new techniques regarding combat that had greatly increased her value as a member of the team. Lastly, there was the fact that Shift had something most other shapeshifters didn't, something that gave Karen, even in the guise of her dragon half, a reason to be wary.

Karen noticed that Danielle was drifting a bit farther to the West, so she adjusted the angle of her wings and allowed her circling pattern to carry her toward the teen. She had just resumed her previous flight pattern when Danni stopped circling and began to hover in place. "I found it!" She gave a whoop of excitement as Karen and the others slowly descended toward her so that the group hovered in a rough circle above the water.

"Good." Karen replied. "Is everyone ready?"

Shift neighed, while the others gave various cries of enthusiasm.

"Don't forget: once I've cast the spell, we won't need our wings any more. Just will yourself in the direction you wish to go, and the magic will take care of the rest."

Karen recalled the particular piece of magic she wanted, then gave a low growl that seemed to make the air tremble. All weight seemed to leave her body, and she folded her wings. She did not plummet into the waves. Danielle, Matthew, and Shift all followed suit, relinquishing the natural desire to flap their wings in exchange for the temporary reprieve the Darkut had given them. Roy drifted off of her back and moved forward to hover near her head.

And then, one by one, the five of them moved toward the surface of the water. Karen worried that her spell would not work as desired, but she had learned it from one of the water dragons, and she knew that it must. She abandoned her apprehension and slipped nose-first into the sea, releasing a sigh of relief when the water parted before her. As she sank into the ocean, she became aware of a large bubble of air surrounding her in every direction, as though a protective force field were keeping the icy waters at bay.

Which was exactly what was happening. The spell allowed its user to travel freely through any body of water, while simultaneously keeping him dry and renewing his oxygen supply by drawing it from the surrounding water.

Karen turned to see that the others were following. They would need to stay close so that Karen could cast the next spell when the group reached Drakken's lair.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Ron had begun moving toward Vellick the instant the Nano-scientist reached into the pocket of his lab coat. Rick took a step forward to stop the youth's advance, but hadn't gone more than single pace before Baron's arm blocked his path.

"Wait." The villain commanded.

Rick was certain that his employer meant to watch as Ron killed Doctor Vellick, but the blue-skinned youth only covered half of the distance between the plane and the scientist before he halted dead in his tracks. Rick watched as the expression on Ron's face changed from one of anger to one of confusion. He turned to look at Baron.

"What did you do to me?" A flicker of pain crossed the young man's face.

"I thought you didn't care." Baron taunted. "You said as much just a few moments ago."

Ron's expression intensified once more into rage, but before he could react to the man's words, he reeled back as though he had been struck in the face and lifted his hands to his head. A trickle of blood appeared beneath his left nostril and made its way to his lips. Rufus stood on his hind legs and pressed his forefeet into Ron's left land, concerned and curious. The naked mole rat attempted to reach into to Ron's mind and ask him what the matter was, but Ron's consciousness was blocked from him. He leaped from the Monkey Master's shoulder and skittered back to Kim.

Doctor Vellick and the others, meanwhile, watched Ron with keen interest.

Kim had been alarmed to see this new change come over Ron, but she held her peace. She didn't know what was going to happen next, and she thought it better not to attract attention to herself, despite the insistent urge to rush to Ron's aid. Instead of attempting to help him, she inched her way to her right, away from Ron and the point in the room upon which all other eyes were focused; Kim realized that only this portion of the room was lit, and however large the rest of it was, it was shrouded in darkness. Rufus tapped her on the cheek.

She turned her head to look down at the pink rodent, and a voice which was not her own popped into her head. _"There are no cameras in here. We may be able to sneak into another portion of the room and hide until the others leave to find us."_

Somehow knowing that the voice belonged to Rufus, but startlingly unsurprised, she mentally replied, _"How do we know they won't search this room until they find us? I know Baron. He's smarter than that."_

"_They may, but they also have no reason not to send the better part of their forces further into the base to cover more ground. We may be able to overpower those who are left behind."_

"_What's happening to Ron?"_

"_I will explain once we have removed ourselves from danger."_ Rufus pointed forward, directly toward the crowd of villains and henchmen. _"I have the ability to make us invisible for a short time. I suggest we make the best of it. We should move that way. Go now, before our cloak deserts us."_

Kim began to move in the indicated direction, no longer afraid that she would be seen. She circled around to the side of the group of henchmen, giving them a berth of no more than an arm's length as she made her way toward the rear of the assembly. She studied the collection of men before her and realized that not only were Drakken's henchmen present, but those of Professor Dementor and Gemini, as well as Baron's own distinctly uniformed mercenaries and Monkey Fist's simian ninjas. Kim also spotted uniforms of other colors, meaning new henchmen had also been hired. Kim caught sight of two middle-aged men in black suits who wore sunglasses even inside the darkened room. _"Who are they?" _She asked Rufus, showing him the men through her mind's eye.

"_I don't know. I'm not close enough to pry into their thoughts."_

The two men turned their heads in Kim's direction, and she was certain they'd seen her, but they made no indication of shouting an alarm or giving chase. Kim kept moving. Once she reached the rear of the group, she moved away from it and began to put distance between herself and her enemies; the light faded as she left the vicinity. She had taken perhaps a dozen paces when she heard Ron scream in agony. Shortly after the horrifying sound died, there was another cry, this one of dismay, which went up from Baron and his men.

"_They know we have left."_ Rufus remarked,_ "And my cloak will not last much longer. We must hide near the entrance to this room before it gives out. You have perhaps a minute."_

Kim quickened her pace, doing her best to remain silent. It helped that she was still wearing her mission clothes, since her shoes had been selected specifically for the purpose of stealth.

Kim felt Rufus tense on her shoulder and a second later, she was able to see a little better in the dark.

"_Our cloak is gone," _He said, _"but you are shrouded in the shadows, so they cannot see you."_

'_Good.' _Kim thought as she glided forward. She saw a shape in the darkness ahead and noticed that it was a stack of crates. Next to and above the crates was a red light: the door. Kim slipped into position next to crates, keeping the wooden boxes between herself and the door. Then a thought occurred to her. _"What if they turn on the lights?"_

"_Keep moving away from the door. There should be a-"_

Rufus was interrupted mid-sentence when the lights flickered to life anyway. In the dead silence of the room, Kim could hear the power buzzing through every single one of them. She wasn't concerned with what she was hearing, however; she was more alarmed by what she saw, for the henchmen and mercenaries had spread out and were searching the room.

Kim remained perfectly motionless. She hoped that if she didn't move, she wouldn't be spotted, and Rufus might be able to reactivate his cloak of invisibility. The naked mole rat had apparently heard her thoughts, for he said, _"No. It's too soon."_

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Danielle led the group down, farther and farther from the surface until they were certain the water would overpower the spell and crush them all. The light from the sun faded away and the world began to grow dark, but before it was all reduced to blackness, Karen spotted a faint glow ahead of them, on the ocean floor. As they made their way closer, the glow split into several brighter points of illumination, and the Darkut realized she was staring at the bright lights of Drakken's facility.

Danielle curved toward the left, out of the first searchlight's line of illumination, and kept to the shadows as she made a beeline for what she had determined to be Drakken's aircraft hangar. A shadow passed over one of the search lights, and the teen turned her head to see a large fish floating near the giant lamp for its warmth. She released a sigh of relief. The entire trip through the water had left her worried that she would be attacked by sharks as though she were living some sort of thriller.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a low grinding noise emanating from behind her; she angled downward and dove deeper, simultaneously turning to acknowledge Karen's muffled roar. It seemed the Glider's paranoia had been somewhat justified, for an unusually large tiger shark had just charged through her previously occupied space. Danielle watched as Karen separated from the group and chased it down. Once the Darkut was close enough, she released a jet of ice from her maw and froze the water surrounding the aquatic predator.

Once more safe, Danielle resumed leading the team to Drakken's base. Without further incident, the five young heroes reached the outer wall of the compound. They huddled close together so that they were all contained within the same bubble of air. This time, Karen gave a loud hiss, activating the next spell. She willed herself even closer to the sub-oceanic building and phased through the wall.

Everyone else followed, depositing themselves as quietly as they could on the floor within the hangar before banishing the spells that Karen had cast on them all.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Half a second after Rufus's response, someone to Kim's left shouted an alarm, and she bolted. But she didn't flee; there were too many men for that. Of course, there were also too many to take on by herself, but at this point, she didn't care. The only way out of this now, if one even existed, was to make one.

Kim charged at the nearest henchman, one of Dementor's, and leapt into the air. Several of Baron's men fired their ever-present tranquilizer weapons at her, but none of the darts met their mark. Each one of the projectiles erupted in little clouds of blue flame while they were yet an arm's length from her body.

"_Be careful!" _Rufus chided. _"That is not an inexhaustible ability."_

Kim grunted an acknowledgement as gravity carried her down onto the targeted henchman's shoulders. She twisted as she had in London and threw the man across the floor. Another opponent, one of Drakken's men, stabbed at Kim with his electric staff, but she ducked beneath the blow and sidled in close to him. The man was surprised by the move, and the half-second of confusion allowed Kim to throw a knee upward into his groin and wrest the staff from his hand. The cheerleader turned and blocked a blow from another staff, then shoved its holder backward and jabbed him in the knee before he could recover. The voltage from the staff enveloped his body and forced every muscle to seize. The man fell to the floor unmoving.

Kim turned to the next man in line, one of Baron's men who had chosen to advance with a nightstick rather than fire another dart, and was about to engage him when a loud, repeated clacking echoed throughout the room. Everyone froze and turned toward the source of the noise. A horse whinnied, and several men laughed. Kim caught a glimpse of sleek, muscled flanks and saw a flurry of feathers near the plane that had brought her here. Shortly after, she could hear Baron speaking.

"It's about time you showed up, shape-changer. I have a lovely surprise for you."

Kim darted forward and forced her way toward the front of the group, dodging several henchmen and mercenaries along the way before she finally emerged from the crush of men. She skidded to a halt and located Baron some distance to her right, turning to face her enemies as she locked eyes with the madman. Between the two them, somewhat closer to Kim than Baron, stood Shift, wearing the form of a snow-white Pegasus. Her broad-feathered wings were folded neatly to her sides as she pawed the floor in anger.

Baron chuckled. "It seems my caution was ill-directed. I would have thought that Kimberly's rescuers would be more formidable than this. Surely you don't think a Pegasus enough to defeat me and my men?"

Shift snorted and half-whinnied, a sound that, to Kim at least, resembled laughter.

Baron's brow furrowed. "You think it funny, do you, that I do not fear your form?"

Shift tossed her head up and down like a horse chomping at the bit: she was nodding! She repeated the horse laugh once more.

Baron signaled to two of his men standing nearby and gestured at the shapeshifter. The mercenaries advanced.

Shift let out a full-throated neigh this time, but the sound was choked off as her body went rigid. The men halted. At first, Kim thought that Baron's men had done something to her, but she soon realized what was really happening.

Shift's wings opened and extended upward, revealing their true size, and several men gasped at the enormity of the twenty-four-foot wingspan. They gasped again when all of the feathers began to fall to the floor, littering the surface with artificial snow and leaving behind a pair of bony, leathery bat wings. Shift's body relaxed somewhat and she extended her head forward, releasing another neigh, but this one was different from the first in that it sounded deeper, more menacing. The Pegasus's white hair darkened and turned black, and Shift lifted her forelegs off of the floor as the limbs transformed into what looked like talons; the bone and tendons popped as their structure was altered from that of a horse to that of an enormous bird. Her hind legs morphed from hooves to a pair of enormous panther-like paws. Another neigh; this one sounded like a whinny and a moan. Shift turned her head toward the crowd of men to her right and Kim saw the corners of the equine's mouth grow wider and split all the way up the jaw, stopping only when the creature could completely open the jaws of its horse skull in one of the most hideous grins Kim had ever seen. That was, until the incisors and molars typically found inside a horse's mouth grew into the dental apparatus normally used by dragons; the six-inch fangs that emerged from the upper jaw looked like slightly curved daggers. The snowy hair that had comprised Shift's mane fell to the floor with the feathers and a pair of straight, black twisted horns grew from the back of her new skull. Long, flexible black spines emerged from the creature's neck and formed a neat line down the center of its back, gradually decreasing in length until they disappeared just behind the shoulders. The tail, outside of becoming the color of ink, seemed to remain as it was. The final step of the transformation was the beast's eyes, which had turned a piercing green.

The transformation had taken all of approximately seven to eight seconds, but all the horror of the ordeal had made it seem that much longer. Shift raised her head, looked Baron square in the face, and unleashed another neigh, but it wasn't the sound it had been before. The result was like the cries of a dozen dying horses, but it came from something that was already dead, that stalked the throne room of Hades himself and was ridden into battle by the soldiers of Hell's army. Shift turned to the crowd of men to her right and paused, waiting for a reaction.


	11. Into the Fray, Out of the Fray

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 11: Into the Fray, Out of the Fray**

While most of the men seemed very unnerved by Shift's display, they kept their cool and stood their ground, which alerted Kim to the fact that they had been somewhat prepared for the ordeal.

"_That explains Baron's comment." _She mentally remarked to Rufus, who had managed to maintain his position on her shoulder throughout the fighting.

"_Yes, which means they'll be ready for the others, as well."_

Kim moved forward to stand next to Shift, then turned and faced the army of men before them. One of Drakken's men twirled his electrified bow staff and took a step forward, determination set on his face. Kim saw the man's eyes flick upward an instant before she heard the sound of beating wings. Two pairs of them, to be exact. She didn't dare turn around and leave her back to an army, but she already knew who had arrived, for it was Matthew's voice that rang out from above her.

"I wouldn't, if I were you." The quality of the youth's voice told Kim that he was grinning.

"He's right." Agreed Danielle, whose voice was projected from a pair of speakers on her helmet. "That shapeshifter will rip you to pieces."

Kim glanced at Baron, who took a step forward. "The bat-child! How kind of you to show yourself!"

Matthew frowned. "_'Bat-child?'_ Listen, pal. I don't know what kind of genius you think you are, but you're wrong. I don't have a strand of _bat_ DNA in me! I'm part dragon, thanks."

Baron was unfazed. "No matter. You're here, and that's all that matters at this point. Where are the rest of your friends? I believe you're one dragon and a technopath short for the party. And I _would_ like to know who your friend is."

"I bet you would!" Matthew smirked. He and Danielle lit on the floor next to Kim, keeping their distance in case they needed to take to the air again. "But she's wearing the helmet to protect more than her hollow skull."

Baron frowned in irritation, but he didn't get a chance to say anything further. There was a loud _'crunch'_ as something huge and heavy settled on top of the plane next to which they all stood. A groaning sound followed as the aircraft's landing gear protested to the weight, and Karen's dragon head snaked down over the tail end of the craft nearest Kim and the others. The Darkut swiveled her head to examine her friends, then turned to Baron, who took a step backward. He had been prepared for a dragon, yes, but he'd never seen one before and the sight of one so close was nonetheless disconcerting.

Baron gathered his composure and turned to face Rick, who was standing next to Dr. Vellick where Ron had collapsed on the floor. "Rick, if you would be so kind…."

Rick nodded and darted in among the henchmen. He returned a moment later and stood next to Baron. "They know."

"Good." Replied the millionaire. He turned his head to look up at Karen. "I don't know your name, dragon, but I suppose it doesn't matter. You are not the only visitor of your kind among these walls."

Karen watched two immense forms rise from the floor among the small army of men. Upon recognizing the growing shapes, she locked her eyes on Baron and hissed. "You think to confuse me with _those_ cowards?! They prey on the weak and helpless!"

Baron flinched at the sound of Karen's voice. He hadn't expected the dragon to speak and the harsh reprimand had caught him off-guard.

Karen returned her attention to the newly transformed wyverns and locked eyes with the larger of the two.

"You think us cowards, do you _dragon_?" The wyvern hissed. "You yourself hide from the true nature of man and beast, behind the skirts of good deeds and an image of-"

"Cease your greed-addled speaking!" Karen growled. "I've no interest in hearing your voice! You call _me_ a coward when you seek to cheat a victory from fate. Even the smallest wyvern is at least half again the size of a dragon, and yet I see two of you standing before me in preparation for battle."

The smaller wyvern hissed in rage at Karen's declaration, but the other growled quietly to silence him. "You may be correct, Darkut, but I am simply following orders. Our leader was contacted by this man, Baron, and agreed to help him. As I recall, it was you, was it not, who slew our greatest magician but four months past? Kræd was not pleased with the loss."

Karen's tongue flicked from her mouth. "And as _I_ recall, that victory was rather satisfactory. Even for a wyvern, his blood was quite sweet. He must have been the most cowardly of you all to hide behind his-"

The lead Wilgut snapped his jaws and roared. "I've had enough of your insults, dragon! Will you surrender, as is wise in this matter, or will you give me an excuse to spill that null-breed's blood of yours?!"

Karen looked down at Kim and the others. She would have to take her battle to another area of the hangar. While fighting here would most certainly eliminate a good deal of the henchmen, it might do the same to her allies. The only problem was that if she happened to end up wherever Roy was hiding, he would be in danger, as well. She sighed. He was a smaller sacrifice than the others would make. Karen returned her attention to the wyverns. "Do you think you can?!"

Then with roar that overpowered even that of the wyvern and which forced Kim and Matthew to cover their ears, Karen stomped a forefoot and dug her claws into the plane's metal hide. She snapped her jaws and slammed her tail into the side of the aircraft to emphasize her power. She opened her wings, leapt into the air and took off for another part of the hangar. The Wilgut followed suit.

There was a brief moment when all that could be heard was the beating of three pairs of mighty wings, but the sound quickly faded as the reptiles moved toward the far end of the football-field length aircraft hangar.

Baron turned to Kim. "And you, Miss Possible? Do you care to give yourself over peacefully? I'm afraid you are outmatched here."

Kim scowled at the man. "How am I outmatched, exactly? I have a Shapeshifter, a half-Darkut, a technopath, a Mystical Monkey-powered naked mole rat, and a specially-trained government agent here to help me. Not to mention you're dealing with a Possible. All you've got is a handful of lackeys and a nerd."

"I thought not." Baron sighed. "Rick?"

Without a word, the Kung Fu master altered his stance, poising himself on the balls of his feet and raising his hands into a martial arts pose. Kim readied herself in a like manner. She allowed herself a small grin. "Hey, Rick? You ready for this?"

The man didn't respond, but rather began to circle toward Kim's right.

An overzealous henchman darted forward and jabbed at Kim with his electric bow staff, but the cheerleader dodged. At the same time, Rufus leapt onto the weapon and engaged its wielder while Shift, Matthew, and Danielle moved forward to engage the army of now-advancing henchmen. Meanwhile, Rick attempted to exploit Kim's temporary distraction by rolling forward across the floor and sweeping his leg toward her ankles.

Kim had already reacted, leaping into the air to land behind the bodyguard. She kept her distance long enough for Rick to finish his maneuver as he continued to sweep his leg in a full circle. He stopped only when he was once more facing Kim, and stood. Kim immediately advanced to engage him hand-to-hand. The move caught Rick off-guard, since he had been expecting a game of cat-and-mouse with the girl, and he faltered just long enough to receive a kick in the stomach.

"What's the matter, Rick?" Kim asked as Owens grunted and stumbled backward. "A little off your game today?"

"It was a lucky shot. Don't expect to land another one."

"I doubt it. I've been training hard since the last time you saw me. And I'm almost as fast as you now."

"'Almost' doesn't cut it." Rick replied. "One wrong move and I _will_ take you out."

"That _might_ be true, but I don't plan on making any mistakes." Kim quipped.

Rick lashed out with an open-hand strike that was supposed to impact with Kim's sternum, but it never connected. The girl had already moved to the side, allowing his hand to pass harmlessly in front of her. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward, sending him to his stomach and across the floor.

"Do you like that move?" She asked. "I learned it from one of Drakken's clones!"

Rick didn't bother with a response. He rolled to his feet and focused on Kim again.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Karen invoked another spell of force and watched as the smaller wyvern was sent hurtling into the wall. The older Wilgut took the opening to charge, opening his wings for lift and pouncing onto her shoulders from the left. Karen pulled in her own wings and rolled onto her right side, using his momentum to spill him onto the floor. She managed to get to her feet just in time to greet the small wyrm with a blast of water, which she immediately followed up with ice, partially encasing the reptile in frozen liquid; he screamed in a way that only wyverns can and backed away, trying to remove the ice from his body.

Karen pivoted to find the older wyvern waiting in a crouch just below her throat. Without waiting for him to strike, she raked the area in front of her with her claws and was rewarded with several gashes in the beast's chest. They weren't deep, but they were a distraction. She opened her wings and leapt backwards, flapping the pinions lightly to increase the distance between herself and her opponents. Both Wilgut composed themselves and advanced at the same time. The larger opened his wings and pounced again, while the smaller stayed low to the floor, cutting off a forward dodge and leaving no time to react with anything but magic. Karen opened her mouth in a silent roar and watched while both wyrms froze mid-stride as though a movie had been paused.

As soon as the magic took hold of her enemies, Karen began to feel light-headed and weak. That particular spell was a strong one, even for a dragon, and its halting effects would not last long. Perhaps using it had been a mistake; she might even have cost herself the battle with that one.

Karen circled around the wyverns and positioned herself behind them, then waited for the spell to wear off. She would need the brief rest.

Twelve seconds after the Darkut had settled behind her opponents, the force gripping them ceased to exist and they fell to the floor as though they had simply been dropped. Once they realized that their target was no longer in front of them, they began to hiss and growl in evident annoyance. Karen didn't give them an opportunity to discover her location. As they picked themselves up from the floor, she blasted them with a large jet of steam, causing them to screech in pain.

But the attack hadn't been as effective as she'd hoped. After flinching from the shock of the initial attack, the larger wyvern charged straight into Karen's blast and tackled her to the floor, cutting off her barrage of heat and water. She still hadn't fully recovered from her spell, and without the strength to fight back, she was thrown completely off her feet and into the side of a nearby chopper.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Baron watched the chaos unfold and briefly regretted that he was going to lose so many men.

'_Ah, well.'_ He thought. _'The dragon alone will be more than enough to pick up the slack, not to mention the shapeshifter and the technopath, especially since we have the resources to make more than one of each clone.'_

He turned to see that Dr. Vellick had dragged Ron to a more sheltered location behind the rear hatch of Drakken's plane and was examining him to ensure that his Nano-bots were functioning properly.

"How is Stoppable?" Baron asked.

"He's fine. The Nano-bots haven't interfered with involuntary functions like breathing or the heart, and there is no brain damage that I can see. I'm also reading a reduction in those parts of the brain that respond to a person's wants and desires, which means he is ours to control. There _is_ some heightened aggression, but it shouldn't be a problem since he no longer has a free will."

"Good. Can you wake him?"

"I believe so. Give me moment."

Vellick tapped several buttons on the face of his remote before flipping the same switch he had used to activate the devices resting on Ron's brain. For several seconds, nothing happened, but then Ron's body arched as though he had been exposed to a defibrillator, and he sat up off of the floor.

Dr. Vellick snapped his fingers. "Ronald!"

Ron's eyes fixed on the scientist for a fraction of a second, and then he cocked back a fist in preparation to hit the man.

"Stop!" Shouted Vellick. Ron froze.

Baron sighed. "I thought you said he was under our control, Doctor."

"He is." Replied Vellick. "Observe. Ron, snap your fingers."

Ron lifted his right hand and snapped once.

"You see, Mr. Baron? The reaction you observed occurred simply because I hadn't yet established the dominance provided by the Nano-bots. Now that he has heard my voice, I can 'program' him, so to speak, to follow the orders of anyone I desire."

"Good. The question is: How can he help us now?"

"Observe." Answered Vellick. "Ron, stand up."

Ron stood.

"Excellent. Now I need you to follow my instructions carefully…."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Matthew ducked under another henchman's bow staff and reminded himself not to spread his wings for balance. In a fight like this, they only made him a larger target, and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

He glanced to his left to see Danielle sparring with one of Baron's mercenaries, who had just charged at her with his nightstick, but missed. Shift was just beyond them, simultaneously holding off several henchmen and mercenaries, her claws and face covered in the blood of her enemies. Apparently, the other villains had left as soon as Karen appeared, taking Shego with them to provide her with medical treatment. Only Baron, Vellick, and Ron remained inactive on the battlefield.

Baron watched the battle from a safe distance, occasionally turning to the scientist next to him to utter a few words. Dr. Vellick had dragged the still unconscious Ron to a more secure location behind the tail end of Drakken's plane and was examining him, for what, Matthew could not be sure.

"Hold still!" the man shouted, lashing out again with his weapon and reminding Matthew that he was supposed to be fighting.

The youth leaned to the right, allowing the rod to pass harmlessly in front of his chest, and realized that the man hadn't been aiming for him. Matthew looked backward, toward the man's target, and saw Roy holding tightly to the end of the staff. Rather than electrocuting him, the device fizzled out.

The half-Darkut grinned. "Hey, Roy! It's about time you showed up!"

Roy shouted a battle cry and pushed the staff toward its wielder's torso, amplifying its energy output as it came into contact with the man's red jumpsuit. The henchman screamed in pain, and then fell to the floor as his heart gave out. Matthew picked up the seemingly useless weapon and handed it to Roy, whose touch brought it back to life. "Let's go." The technopath said as he and Matthew rejoined the fray.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Kim duck-rolled forward and shifted her weight onto her hands, then flexed her arms and pushed her feet upward into the area where Rick's stomach was supposed to be, but the martial artist wasn't there. Kim adjusted her leap through the air and landed in a low crouch, scanning the area where she had just been. She felt a presence to her left and threw herself in the opposite direction, vacating the area just as Rick jabbed an elbow down where her shoulders had just been.

'_. . . would have knocked me out cold!'_ She thought. She hopped to her feet and darted toward Rick at full speed. Just before she entered his field of reach, she leaned backward and slid across the floor between his legs, grabbing his left ankle as she went by. Rick was jerked halfway to the side and thrown off of his feet as he was robbed of his balance. He caught himself in a kneeling position and gathered his bearings.

Kim used her remaining momentum to plant her feet and propel herself upright, then turned and altered her stance by replanting her feet to complement her new position. She jabbed an elbow at the back of Rick's head, but rather than attempting to rise, as she had thought he would, the ex-bounty hunter dropped his chest to the floor, throwing Kim off-balance as her intended target left her with empty air. As she toppled forward, she placed her hands on Rick's back and used the man to hand-spring to the top of Drakken's plane. Rick stood and looked up at her.

"You _have_ improved."

"I told you: I've been practicing."

"So you have, but I think your time is up."

"Oh? And why is that?"

Rick pointed toward Kim. "Him."

Kim belatedly realized that the body guard wasn't pointing directly at her, but rather than wasting time by turning around to find out who he _was_ pointing at, she ducked and rolled forward off the edge of the plane. She flipped once and landed on her feet, then performed a series of handsprings that put some distance between her and Rick. Only then did she take the risk of turning around. When she did, she found Ron standing in front of her, his face a mere handful of inches from her own.

Shocked at the closeness, Kim gasped and backed away. "Ron? You're okay!"

Baron and Vellick appeared next to Rick. Baron's arms were folded over his chest and he wore a grin on his lips. "I'm afraid he is not 'okay,' Miss Possible. "You see, he answers to me now."

Kim's anger flared. "As if! You know for a fact-"

Baron raised a finger matter-of-factly. "Ah ah ah! You haven't let me finish. Do you remember that I was telling you about my contingency plan? I think I get to finish my story now."

Kim scowled and clenched her hands into fists. She glanced to her right to see the better portion of Baron's and Drakken's men lying on the floor; they were all injured, wounded, unconscious, or dead. There was a deafening, inhuman scream from somewhere else in the hangar, which caused almost everyone in the room to pause for a moment before resuming their respective battles. "Alright, Baron, tell your story."

"Thank you. I'll try to keep it brief, for the sake of winning this battle before I lose too many more men.

"Anyway, as I said before, Ron answers to me now. You see, even before I captured you, I had a contingency plan in place. While you and Ronald were in the hospital, I had him dosed with a series of injections that carried Nano-bots designed to override his free will. Thanks to Doctor Vellick here, the Nano-bots were tailored specifically to Ronald's brain waves in order to insure maximum compliance. I had originally planned to dose you as well, but after witnessing the power that your dearly beloved holds, and after your stubborn refusal to succumb to my interrogation before I was captured, I decided not to have the machines administered to you. I thought it would quite lovely to watch your despair as you were betrayed by your love."

Kim's anger deepened, and her fists clenched even tighter, threatening her palms with cuts from her nails. "You realize that all you've succeeded in doing is pissing me off, right? Ron and I spar all the time, and even when he uses the Lotus Blade, I can beat him. But Monkey Fist took the Lotus Blade with him, and Ron is stuck with his own two hands and feet. Every time we've sparred, especially when I was angry, I won."

"Correct you are, Miss Possible, but the two of you no doubt sparred while fresh and rested. Ronald has not engaged in combat just yet, while you have been fighting Rick and several of these henchmen for the past fifteen minutes. Not to mention the fact that Ron more than likely reserves his unique power for more difficult battles than you can face him with. If he were to command that power against you, you would be hard-pressed to win."

He was right. Kim would need some sort of miracle to help her now. She inched her right foot backward in preparation to fight. She glared at Baron, Rick, and Vellick over Ron's left shoulder. "Okay, then. If you want to test it, have at it!"

Baron chuckled. "Ron, would you be so kind as to take Kim into custody for me?"

Ron didn't even utter a response. He jabbed his left hand forward in an open-palm strike that was supposed to hit Kim's collar bone, but the cheerleader was already moving, having leaned to the right and brought her own hands up to counter. With one hand, she reacted by grabbing Ron's wrist; the other hand she braced against the back of Ron's elbow and locked out his arm, threatening him with a broken joint if he decided to move.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Ron had paused to evaluate his situation while Baron, Rick, and Vellick all watched the match in anticipation of the next move. During the brief hiatus, the sounds of the nearby battle died away, leaving only those of Karen and the wyverns somewhere else in the hangar.

Taking care not to lose her focus, Kim turned both herself and Ron so that they could see what was happening, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Shift, Matthew, Danielle, Roy and Rufus had all either incapacitated or killed every one of the men they had been fighting. They all stood in a rough line among the henchmen, watching Kim, Ron and their three remaining enemies. Rufus was perched on Roy's left shoulder.

"Well, well, well," Danielle smirked. "It seems your little army of lackeys (or was it lack-wits?) couldn't keep up, _Walter_!"

Baron turned to Danni, a grin of mild amusement on his face. "Well, it seems I've lost a few more men than I originally planned. No matter. I still have a few trump cards to play. Ronald?"

Ron fixed his eyes on Baron, waiting for his next set of orders.

"Use this _Mystical Monkey Power _of yours. I want every one of these rebels bound in the next two minutes."

Ron nodded and bowed his head in concentration. Kim watched as his skin turned blue again, and she felt a surge of power rush through his body. With a gasp, she released his arm and backed away, shocked at the amount of energy he was producing.

But more than that, she was completely blown away by the fact that Baron had succeeded in taking over his mind. She thought about how close she had come to the same situation and was glad that Baron had left her alone in the hospital. She, at least, would be able to devise a way out of this.

Ron turned around and looked over the small crowd of heroes standing before him, and before anyone could comprehend the speed of his movements, he was standing next to Danielle. The teen didn't wait for Ron to grab her. She opened her wings and jumped backward, using the pinions to lengthen the distance of her leap.

As Danielle distanced herself from Ron, Matthew and Shift split up and circled to his left and right. While Ron was busy, Kim moved to engage Rick and Roy darted toward Vellick, while Rufus leapt from the technopath's shoulder and ran toward Ron.


	12. Down for the Count

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 12: Down for the Count**

Everything slowed to a crawl. As Kim moved toward Rick, she noticed that Rufus, Matthew, Shift and Danni were all occupied with keeping Ron under control while Roy made a run for Vellick. She returned her attention to Owens, hoping that Ron wouldn't kill any of their new friends and that their crew would last long enough to give Roy a chance at deactivating the Nano-bots.

And although she didn't see why, that hope was short-lived.

As Roy closed the distance between himself and Dr. Vellick, the Nano-scientist reached into the left pocket of his lab coat. When he removed his hand, there was a slim elastic band wrapped around it, and centered in the middle of his palm was a thin silver disc the size of a silver dollar. Roy was about to tackle Vellick to the floor when the man performed a brisk sidestep and half-pressed, half-slapped the device on his hand into the boy's forehead. Roy's body jerked once and a strangled shout left his lips. He fell to his back on the floor and began thrashing as if possessed. All of the lights that had flickered to life earlier, died.

Matthew, who had just dodged one of Ron's energy-charged fists, caught a glimpse of what had happened. "Roy!" The half-Darkut bared his fangs in a snarl and, using some archaic language, shouted a short, two-word phrase.

"Wait!" Danni yelled. But it was too late. The magic had already been cast. Matthew lifted his hand and, palm open, aimed it at Vellick. There was a sound like thunder as a bolt of lightning discharged from Matthew's hand and impacted with the man's shoulder, flipping him head over heels and a dozen feet backward. He hit the floor, slid several more feet, and didn't move. Matthew turned on Baron and was about to perform the trick again, but Ron moved up behind him and grabbed him in a choke hold, disrupting the youth's focus. Danni and Shift moved in to help.

While Ron grappled with Matthew, Kim was still battling Rick. She had just dodged a drop kick aimed at her stomach when a deafening roar bellowed out of the shadows in front of her. Everyone froze as Karen, no longer wearing the guise of a dragon, walked out of the gloom. She was being followed by both Wilgut, the younger of the two in his human body while the elder followed in his reptilian form. Kim recognized the human-looking Wilgut as one of the tuxedoed men she had spotted earlier.

Baron chuckled. "Do you see? Even your dragon has been defeated! You _must_ realize by now that you are hopelessly outclassed, even with all of my men incapacitated."

Kim clenched her fists again, but she didn't drop her combat stance. She looked in Matthew's direction to see that Ron had choked him out and was staring down Shift, Danni, and Rufus; glanced at Roy to find that he lay unconscious at Vellick's feet; and stared into Karen's eyes as the Darkut silently pleaded with her not to give up. Then she locked eyes with Baron.

"If you think I'm just going to roll over and submit to you, Baron, you've got another think coming! I didn't back down before, and I'm not going to back down now, so I suggest you pour the last of your resources into stopping me, because I'm not quitting!"

Without waiting for the order, Rick darted forward and stopped short in front of Kim. He spun in a quick half-circle, so that his back was facing the cheerleader, and snapped his elbow backward into Kim's stomach. Kim resisted the urge to double over and responded by jumping onto Rick's back and wrapping her right arm around his neck. He responded by throwing himself backward toward the floor. Kim was waiting for that response, however, and focused on planting her feet so that Rick couldn't come down on top of her. Instead, she waited a half second and released her hold on the bounty hunter before hopping backward and allowing him to land with all of his weight on the concrete floor.

The fall dazed the man, but it didn't knock him unconscious as Kim had hoped it would, so rather than give Rick a chance to regain his faculties or his feet, she kicked him in the side of the head and sent him to his dreams. Then she turned on Ron, an expression of anger on her face.

"Ron, snap out of it, now! I can't believe you let this guy get inside your head!"

Ron didn't move. He continued to watch Shift and Danni, apparently unbothered by Kim's developing lecture. And, Kim thought, he didn't seem to think she would try to hurt him. Well, he had another think coming….

Kim strode forward and stopped just outside Ron's field of reach. "Did you hear me? You're better than this!"

Baron stepped over Roy's now-still form and placed himself next to Baron. "He doesn't recognize your voice any more, Miss Possible." Kim turned to face the scientist. "Dr. Vellick programmed him to acknowledge our voices and our voices alone. Nothing you say to him will _mean_ anything to him, and it certainly won't make any difference."

Kim heard a grunt and a light cough from behind her. "You're wrong!"

Baron's eyes narrowed. "What did you just say, Ronald?"

Kim turned again to see Ron standing with the first two fingers of each hand pressed to his temples. He looked angrier than she'd ever seen him before.

"I said you're _wrong_!" He paused for a moment before gasping in an effort to maintain his free will, then groaned again. "If these parasitic robots of yours…don't drive me crazy…first, I will break…whatever bond you and that crazy scientist have placed on me…and then I will kill you both."

Vellick stirred on the floor where he had landed and lifted his head to stare at Ron. "Oh, I don't think so." He gasped, then touched another button on his remote. "You will submit." That was the last thing he did before he passed out.

Ron's expression returned to one of emotionless focus and he lowered his hands to his sides.

Baron grinned. "Ronald, capture Kim."

"Yes, Mr. Baron."

Ron locked his eyes on Kim and dropped low, sweeping with his left leg as Owens had done earlier. Kim hopped as the limb passed beneath her and backpedaled to avoid the all-out assault she knew Ron was capable of. And none too soon, for even as the young Monkey Master rose to his full height, he rushed forward and attempted to bull Kim to the floor.

Kim, however, twirled to her left and followed the spinning motion with a spinning kick aimed at Ron's upper back and shoulders. What she hit instead was Ron's open and waiting palm, which immediately closed around her ankle. He thrust her foot toward the floor to disrupt her balance, and as she flailed her arms to avoid falling, he seized her wrists and forced her arms behind her back. Kim shoved herself backward in an attempt to send Ron to the floor, but he braced his feet, flexed his legs, and stood fast. Then, before Kim could conjure up any new ideas, Ron twitched his right knee forward into the back of Kim's own, forcing the joint to buckle. Ron knelt next to her as she fell, and held her there while Baron watched her struggle. The man grinned, amused at the young woman's helplessness.

A low growl emanated from nearby, causing Ron, Baron, and the two Wilgut to turn and stare at Shift. Only when they followed the young shapshifter's line of sight did they realize that the growling was coming from Karen.

The woman remained in her human form, but she growled as a dragon might, all the while returning Shift's stare. For several seconds, nothing happened, but then Danielle ran forward, opening her wings and hitting a button on her helmet as she did so, and then hopped onto Shift's back. The shape-changer crouched, opened her own wings, leaped upward, and beat the bony appendages, launching Danielle into the air. The girl in the black suit beat her soot-colored pinions and fled upward.

Baron emitted his own half-growl, this one less threatening than Karen's, and shouted, "Don't let her leave!"

The elder wyvern flapped his wings and leaped upward, snapping his jaws shut a mere inch or two from the soles of Danni's feet. Danielle phased through the roof of the hangar and disappeared.

For the next few minutes, Baron and his cohorts waited for the girl to reappear, but nothing happened. Resigning himself to the fact that the teen had left to get help, Baron stalked toward Karen. Shift growled a warning, and the man paused for a few seconds.

"You." He said, pointing at the younger Wilgut. "Take her down. But don't kill her."

The Wilgut smiled and backed away, giving himself room to change before taking on his wyvern form. There was a brief moment of silence as Shift sized up the beast before her, and then the Wilgut simply charged.

The battle lasted twenty-two seconds before Shift acknowledged that she was outmatched and submitted, shifting back to her human form to prove she would no longer fight.

Meanwhile, Baron had taken a good long look at the dragon-girl in front of him. When the noise died down, he asked, "Where did she go?"

Karen scoffed. "You think that because I wear a human form, I am no longer a dragon, but let me assure you, the beast lies in wait."

Baron decided to engage in the woman's word-play. "That may be true, but the beast is also caged. If the cage never opens, the beast waits eternally."

"The beast bides its time until the so-called 'master' becomes complacent."

"So you acknowledge the master?"

"Aye, but master though you may be, the house over which you preside is a house of cards."

"The cards have been well placed and well played."

"The game always changes."

"You play a game? I conduct business."

"You engage in folly."

"Enough. Tell me where the girl went."

"I will not."

"No? You may not realize it, but I knew you would be coming, or at the very least, I strongly suspected it. I have equipped myself with the necessary Wilgut to capture you, but I have also armed myself with knowledge. I understand that even in your human guise, Darkut are very resilient and can not only withstand a large amount of pain, but are built a bit sturdier than actual humans. Am I mistaken?"

Karen glared at Baron for a few seconds before relinquishing a bitter "no."

"And while knowing simply that you have a high pain tolerance does of itself help me, it also allows me to choose the best tools for your interrogation."

In three, too-quick-to-track, blink-of-an-eye motions, Baron flicked his wrist, revealing a five-inch switchblade from somewhere inside his sleeve, then grabbed Karen's shoulder and pulled her forward, shoving the sharpened steel into the woman's abdomen. Kim gasped in alarm.

Karen didn't shout or scream. She never even groaned in pain. She simply placed her hands over Baron's own and shoved him away. As the millionaire stumbled backward, he took the switchblade with him, spattering Karen's blood across the floor and on his shoes and slacks. The wyvern behind her lowered his snout next to the young woman's head and snapped his jaws. Karen pressed her left hand to the fresh wound, but otherwise showed no further signs of resistance.

Baron's eyes widened in surprise. "You _do_ feel almost nothing!"

"Oh, I felt it. It wasn't nearly as painful as you might think, though. In fact, it's already healed." Karen removed her hand, and no more blood flowed from her flesh. Only her clothing, and the blood upon the floor, gave any evidence of her recent wound.

A low chuckle vibrated from the elder Wilgut's chest, "Healed you may be, but the spell is a taxing one, especially for your human body."

Karen turned to glare at the reptile. "You forget that magic works differently for dragons than it does for _wyverns._ A 'taxing' spell for you is only too simple for one such as me."

"Such may be true," the Wilgut retorted, "but you have already tired yourself with strong spells. Changing time is not easy, even for the greatest of enchanters. I see it in your eyes. Your strength is waning."

Karen opened her mouth to argue, but true to the Wilgut's words, she lost consciousness and fell to the floor, as immersed in her own dreamscape as Kim had forced Rick to be.

The older Wilgut chuckled again and fixed his eyes on Kim. "She was trying to appear stronger than she is. And while in most situations the bluff would work, she did not realize that might and strength are what we seek in you all. Did it not occur to you that we were too well prepared for your arrival?"

Kim stared at the Wilgut in shock, then chanced a look at Karen's prone form, wondering exactly what sort of magic the half-dragon had used.

Baron turned toward Kim, bloody knife still in hand, and smirked. "It seems your team of heroes has fallen apart. Even your _boyfriend_ has turned against you."

Kim's expression of surprised hardened into one of rage as she shifted her attention to the man responsible for her capture. "You talk like you've already won, Baron. But you forget that one of them escaped. And if I know anything about these young _heroes,_ it's that they've got more tricks up their sleeves than you apparently do."

"Kimberly," Baron crooned, "we're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. How long do you think it took your friends to fly here? I can guarantee that they didn't use aircraft, especially when most of them have wings of their own and they can avoid telling anyone else of their existence. It took them days to get this far, and I have to say that I'm impressed with their endurance for accomplishing such a distance over the open ocean. Even if that girl has the strength to fly all the way back to shore, it will be some time before she can return with help. I have at least three or four days with you and your friends. And that's assuming she even makes it."

It took Kim a few moments to realize that Baron was mistaken about Danielle. He didn't know that the girl's wings were fake, and he had no idea that she could theoretically fly forever if she had to. Kim decided to keep the knowledge to herself, at least until it would prove useful as a distraction for Baron. Not to mention the fact that if she disclosed that knowledge now, the Wilgut might be able to catch Danielle and bring her back.

Instead of becoming downcast, as Baron surely expected, Kim grinned. "Well, it seems like you don't know very much about her."

"Of course not. She was an unanticipated addition to the group that I _was_ expecting. You see, Drakken told me all about what happened in the Himalayas. I thought that these young heroes might be watching the goings on around the globe and therefore know when and where their help was needed. I contacted some old friends of mine from the more shadowy-"

"_More_ shadowy than you?" Kim retorted.

"Don't interrupt." Baron scowled. "As I was saying, I called up some old contacts of mine who were more familiar with the underbelly of our world. One told me about a Canadian boy turned technopath by the madness of the Russians. From another, I heard legends of magic and dragons, along with the stories of their wyvern counterparts. I wasn't able to gather much about the winged boy, but apparently he comes from the same corner of the globe as our reptilian friends. And when I heard about the shapeshifters, you could imagine just how happy I was to discover that one of the next clones I made could transform itself into anyone I wanted.

"And yet I sense a firm confidence in you, regarding a single girl who unexpectedly escaped from almost certain capture."

Kim began to regret her comment. If Baron started asking questions…. She'd experienced one of his interrogations before….

"If you ask me, she seemed rather ordinary, not superhuman in any way. And you _did_ mention - how did you put it? - a 'specially trained government agent' while you were gloating earlier. I'm certain that even with those trifling details, I can discover more. I just need to speak to the right people."

Kim scoffed, relieved that Baron hadn't begun interrogating her. "Do you think you can probe far enough into the inner workings of every government on earth to figure that out?"

Baron's expression remained placid. "I've no doubt at all, Miss Possible. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

The man turned and started toward the exit. As he walked away, he said, "You know what to do. Get to work."

Ron forced Kim to her feet and pushed her after Baron, while the Wilgut began their own work tending to the captives left in the hangar.


	13. Turning Tides

******Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.**

**CHAPTER 13: Turning Tides**

Despite Kim's prodding, Ron said nothing as he escorted her to her holding cell. Whatever Vellick had done to the Monkey Master, it had a firm hold on his mind, and there was no way to get through to him. Not now, at least.

Kim was, however, heartened by the fact that Rufus was nowhere to be found, meaning he had managed to disappear before everyone had been captured or incapacitated. If he was inside the facility, he would be working behind the scenes to sabotage whatever he could, and if he wasn't doing that, he was biding his time until Danni could return with help.

Kim sighed, resigned herself to waiting, and sat on the floor to practice some meditation techniques that Ron had taught her the month before.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

She remained in her meditative state for about an hour, focused only on her breathing and her heart rate. Occasionally she thought she heard whispers in her mind, but the contact was so fleeting and brief that she couldn't be sure.

But finally, one hour and three minutes hours after she had begun, she was interrupted by a mental shout that seemed to deafen her.

"_KIM!" _Ron's voice. But how?

"_Ron?"_

There was no response. Kim was certain she had 'heard' his voice. Was he still fighting Vellick's Nano-bots, trying to overcome their influence on his mind? He had to be. He wouldn't give in easily, but whatever toll he was paying for his efforts was high.

Kim resumed her meditation, in the hope that if she left her mind open, Ron might be able to speak to her again. And so, another hour passed as Kim shut out her hunger and her weariness.

She could not, however, resist the urge to wonder what was happening to her friends.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Danielle laughed to herself as she emerged from a pillar of green light and dropped two feet to the top of a large office building in New York City. Baron had no idea she possessed teleportation technology! Unfortunately, each portal required a fresh activation unit and could only be used once, and she'd only carried one to Drakken's base. But she was right where she wanted to be, so she wasn't losing any more time than was necessary.

She mentally banished Karen's renewed levitation and phasing spells and lifted her arms over her head for a brief stretch. When she was done, she referred to her wristwatch and pressed a combination of buttons on the device. The phone on the other end of the line rang twice before the woman who owned it picked up.

"Onyx Bedra, International Police Agency."

"Onyx? It's Danielle Bridger."

The woman was surely surprised at being contacted by the Glider, but she never let it show. "What do you need?"

Danielle outlined the events leading to her phone call, beginning with the mission in the Himalayas and concluding with her escape from Baron and his Wilgut in the Pacific Ocean.

There was a short silence on the other end of the line as Onyx contemplated her options. "You do realize that my aid depends on the approval of the Captain, don't you?"

"I do. Tell him you've been contacted by an agent of the FreedomFlight Program - he'll know what that means – and he'll approve you to leave."

"You're sure?" Onyx knew more than her fair share of government secrets, especially considering she was the product of one.

"Yes. I know you're savvy to most of the nation's secrets, but you haven't got all of them." Danni grinned. "Not yet, anyway."

Onyx allowed herself a chuckle. "Alright. Where do you want to meet?"

"Let's meet at the old museum warehouse where you died; I have at least one other friend I'd like to find before we head out."

"I'll be there within the hour. What do I need?"

"Just your standard gear. And three teleport units."

"Three?"

"I'll explain when I see you."

The Glider could almost hear the agent shrug. "Whatever you say. When will you be there?"

"Sixty minutes."

"Affirmative. See you there."

Danielle ended the call and gazed over the evening cityscape, trying to determine where she should begin looking for her next comrade. She referenced her watch again and double-checked the holographic map of New York's subway system before setting her sights on the nearest station, two blocks to the North. Fortunately, it was close to where she wanted to go, and she wouldn't have to wait long. The only remaining question was whether or not to disguise her wings with the 'backpack' shell, which she was carrying in a cargo pocket, or to descend on the wing to the streets below.

Deciding that she didn't want the extra attention, she covered the feathered appendages and turned toward the rooftop access door.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

As a shadow dragon, Derrick was a little different from the others within the Darkut community. Unlike the other types of dragons, shadow dragons were not encased in armor-like scales. Instead, they possessed a thick, tough, leathery hide that served the same defensive purpose. That difference was not immediately visible to the naked eye, however, for shadow dragons were also cloaked in an inch-thick layer of shadow that clung to their bodies and concealed potential weaknesses. These particular Darkut were also more agile than other dragons, since they were less muscular and more serpent-like. Lightning was their natural element, and those with mastery over the element prove to be deadly opponents, even to other shadow dragons.

Derrick summoned a wall of lightning, just in time to avoid a fireball from his opponent, Gerald Evans, a large fire dragon who had asked him to spar earlier that day. As the flames dissipated, Derrick dispelled his shield and retaliated; he opened his mouth and threw a net of lightning at Gerald. The projectile was too large to dodge, and the fire dragon was enveloped in electricity as the attack overwhelmed him.

With a roar of determination, Gerald opened his wings and snapped the glowing ropes, destroying the net of energy. He crouched low to the floor, and then pounced at Derrick, hoping to pin the shadow dragon and end the match.

But Derrick was too quick. He tucked his wings and slithered forward, evading Gerald's attack by dodging forward and under him. The shadow dragon waited until he was clear of Gerald and opened his wings, beating his way upward within the enormous subterranean training room used by the Darkut of New York City. He twisted in the air so that he was once again facing his opponent, and then roared a challenge. Gerald returned the taunt and opened his wings to join Derrick in the air.

"HALT!"

Both Gerald and Derrick paused as the half-roar, half-shout reverberated through the sparring chamber. They turned to see Marcus, their leader as the only existing dragon of Light, standing near the entrance of the room. Next to his pale yellow, slightly luminous form was a young human girl clad in a black body suit and wearing a black backpack. Under her arm was a black helmet.

Derrick descended to the floor and landed next to Gerald. He stepped forward and dipped his head, deferring to Marcus's leadership, before inquiring, "What do you need, Marcus? Why have you brought a human here?"

"Karen has been captured by a man named Walter Baron."

"A human? How-?"

Marcus lifted a forepaw in the human gesture for 'wait' and continued. "He contacted the Wilgut leader, Kræd, and enlisted the help of at least two wyverns in order to capture Karen and her friends. This girl has also informed me that Team Possible has been captured, as well as a shapeshifter, a technopath, and your cousin's son, Matthew."

For several seconds, Derrick could only stare at the light dragon, but after a moment, he gathered his composure and shifted his attention to the girl. "I remember you now. Danielle. Karen introduced you to me, but the meeting was brief."

"Yes. That was before we went to Drakken's lair in the Himalayas. Now he's set up under the Pacific Ocean. That's where we have to go to rescue the others."

"Do you have a plan for getting down there? We dragons are good swimmers, but even a water dragon can't travel that deep without help from a spell. The pressure alone would crush us."

"Karen learned a spell from a water dragon before we left that created a barrier between us and the water. We also used one that allowed us to move with our thoughts, and there was a third one that caused us to phase through the walls of the base."

"I know the latter two of those spells, but I will need to find a water dragon to learn the first one."

"No, you won't." Marcus replied. "I know it, and I will teach it to you, but first, there is the issue of rescuing this girl's friends. Do you think the two of you alone are enough to overpower the forces at Baron's disposal? He not only has Wilgut, but an army of henchmen, mercenaries, and apparently, monkey ninjas, as ridiculous as it sounds."

Danielle looked up at Marcus. "I have another friend coming to help: A woman by the name of Onyx Bedra. Matthew helped her out a few months ago."

"Still," Marcus replied, "she is only one human. Are you certain you would not like to take another Darkut with you? I can send an additional dragon of any element: fire, ice, water, earth, shadow, or even a celestial dragon."

Danielle shifted her gaze to Derrick. "Do you think we'll need the help?"

"You would know better than I." Derrick answered.

"Well," Danni said, "The more people we bring along, the more likely it is that we'll get spotted."

"You are correct."

Danielle turned back to Marcus. "I don't believe we'll need any help, but thank you for the kind offer."

Marcus nodded and replied. "You are most welcome. A friend of Karen's is a friend of ours, for she has done much in aid of her fellow Darkut."

Danielle stepped away so that Marcus could teach Derrick the spell he needed. While the pair conversed, she approached the large red dragon standing some feet away.

"Hello!" She called to the fiery reptile.

"Greetings, friend human. You may call me Gerald."

"My name is Danielle, but everyone I know calls me Danni."

"Well then, Danni, it seems you are well-trusted by our great leader, for you are the first human to set foot in our halls in this modern age."

"It certainly was hard to get an audience!"

As the two of them conversed, Danielle studied Gerald's dragonform. It seemed fire dragons were sturdy, almost stocky beasts that sported a great deal of muscle, and certainly the strength to accompany it. The fire Dragon had a thick neck and heavily muscled limbs. His horns and claws looked like pillars of lava stone, with glowing cracks that suggested a living magma still seethed within. His scales were an angry, burning red, and though each one was shaped like a flame, every one of them was also different, which resulted in the appearance of living fire whenever the dragon moved. Not to mention the smoky red eyes that watched her from above; Gerald's eyes appeared to glow with an inner fire, even as the air in front of the orbs wavered with the intense heat coming from inside them. Occasionally, smoke curled from his nostrils.

Danni couldn't stop herself from asking, "Does every dragon look like his element?"

"Yes, but in the same respect, we are also different. I am young for a fire dragon, and one who is older than myself might have more cracks in his horns, or perhaps his scales are a darker red." Gerald bared his teeth a rough imitation of a grin. "I know one elder fire dragon who has small horns on his chin, like a beard."

Danielle chuckled. "That sounds interesting. I would love to meet other Darkut. Perhaps when this is all over, I can return."

"I would like that." Gerald replied. "But for now, I believe it is time for you to go."

Danni turned to see both Marcus and Derrick watching her.

Derrick laughed, an odd sound coming from a dragon. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. Let's go."

Derrick shifted into his human form and joined Danielle as she left the room. Marcus and Gerald, favoring their larger bodies, followed closely behind.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

New York is never silent, but in the outskirts of the city, the noise and bustle of traffic fades into whispers.

'_I may not know _all _of __the government's secrets, but I _do_ know its most dangerous ones.'_

Onyx had parked her black SUV about fifty feet from the front of a familiar old warehouse, situating the vehicle so that the driver's door was facing the building. In this manner, she would be able to use the greater bulk of the SUV as shielding if someone hostile should approach from the city. If someone should choose to advance from the direction of the _warehouse_, they had fifty feet of open asphalt and bulletproof glass and steel to contend with, not to mention the occupant of the vehicle, who was also armed.

Onyx sat in the driver seat, scanning the area outside of her vehicle for either Danielle or one of her dragon friends. Patience was not her strong suit; she preferred to be doing something, not sitting around waiting for something to happen. More often than not, waiting was painting a target on your back. For her, at least.

She checked her uniform to ensure it was in order. Not only did she want Baron and his compatriots to recognize who she worked for, but she wanted to be sure that nothing was out of place. There was no need for an un-tucked bootlace or a stray strap to step her up during a firefight. She needn't have worried, for her black t-shirt was tucked smartly into her black-and-white camouflage cargo pants, the legs of which were subsequently tucked into her black, steel-toed combat boots; her deep black hair, which hung a foot past her shoulders, was secured in a simple ponytail. Then, as she did almost every time she thought of her uniform, Onyx recalled that except for the color of her clothing and the absence of a blouse, she looked like military. That was the point, because the IPA, the International Police Agency, was a global force of law that worked to apprehend criminals who fled from one country to another, much like United Nations and coalition forces worked together to rid the world of terrorism.

She reached across her torso to her right side, retrieved the M9 holstered there, and for the seventh time in the past fifteen minutes, checked the weapon for any deficiencies that might interfere with its ability to fire. When she found none, she thumbed the switch above the handgun's grip and allowed the full clip to slide into her waiting palm. Just as they had been the last six times she'd checked, every round was still seated within the sleeve. The agent slid the clip home, double-checked the safety, and re-holstered the M9 before reaching down to her left combat boot.

Strapped to the boot, on the outside of her leg, was a sidearm commonly referred to as a 'mousegun,' a weapon valued for its size and ease of concealment. Onyx had built this one herself and had designed it to hold ten small, high-velocity, armor-penetrating rounds per clip. It had proved useful in several situations, and she had a feeling she might need it on this new adventure. She checked the weapon and re-clipped it to the steel-toed boot, then reached across to the inner side of her right leg, where a six-inch combat knife was sheathed within her other boot, the slim three-and-a-half-inch handle protruding above the edge of the footgear.

Onyx scanned the blade and thumbed the edge to test the keenness of the steel before returning it to its protective casing. As she sat up to resume her watch, she noticed a twitch of movement to her left, near the warehouse. She looked toward the origin of the disturbance to see Danielle and a lean, athletic-looking young man with black hair. She got out of her car.

"It's about time you showed up!" Onyx grinned. "You're sixteen minutes late."

Danni, carrying her helmet rather than wearing it, returned the smile. "Counting, are we?"

"You know me. Ever the patient one." Onyx's expression turned serious. "But really. What are we up against here?"

"Baron has an army of mercenaries and henchmen. The mercs are armed with tranquilizers, and the henchmen have electrified bow staffs that pack a serious punch. Not to mention Monkey Fist and his army of monkey ninjas. I didn't see them while I was there, but we know that Baron would find them useful. He's also controlling Ron somehow."

"Is that it?"

"Oh, no. Have you ever seen a dragon up close?"

"Never seen one at all."

Danielle turned to Derrick, who backed away and shifted into his dragonform. Onyx stared up at the reptile's faint yellow eyes.

"Wow."

"Yep. You already know my friend Karen is also a Darkut, but there was a reason I wanted you to see the dragon half: Baron has two Wilgut – wyvern hybrids – working for him, and each one of them is at least fifty percent larger than any given dragon. We're going to have a real fight on our hands unless we can, at the very least, free Karen."

Onyx nodded. "Mmm-hmmm." She was still staring at Derrick's massive form, and it took her a moment to shake off her apprehension.

Derrick cleared his throat. "Don't forget that Wilgut can sense Darkut, even in our human guise, and they will know we're coming, no matter how stealthily we may move."

"Well," Danielle said, "Then you'll have to wait to move in. Let Onyx and me go first."

Derrick growled. "And if the two of you get captured?"

"You can still come to help. Either that or come back for other Darkut."

"That, I will not do."

"Then you'll have to trust us to do our best."

Derrick snorted.

"I do have one more question." Onyx remarked.

Danni cocked her head slightly.

"How do we get in?"

Danielle flashed a smile. "That's what the extra two teleport units are for!"


	14. Surprise Surprise!

**IT'S BEEN A WHILE, HUH? NOT ONLY HAS THERE BEEN A LOT GOING ON AT WORK, BUT I'VE HAD EVEN MORE WRITER'S BLOCK, IF THAT'S EVEN POSSIBLE. BUT I FINALLY SAT DOWN AND DECIDED WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN, SO HERE WE ARE. THE NEXT FEW MAJOR HAPPENINGS ARE ALREADY DECIDED, SO NOW IT'S JUST A MATTER OF GETTING IT TYPED UP AND SUBMITTED TO FF! PLEASE ENJOY!**

**ALSO, KP AND RELATED CHARACTERS DO NOT BELONG TO ME. HOWEVER, ONYX BEDRA, WALTER BARON, RICK OWENS, MATTHEW, SHIFT, KAREN BECKWIT, DANIELLE BRIDGER, ROY, NATHAN VELLICK, THE DARKUT, THE WILGUT, AND THIS SCENARIO BELONG TO ME!**

**CHAPTER 14: Surprise Surprise!**

Night had already fallen in New York City, but several hours to the West, the sun was still setting over the Pacific Ocean. For a brief moment, however, half a mile above the water, the bold yellows, reds, and oranges of the descending sun were overpowered by a flare of emerald green. If anyone had been there to see it, they might have doubted their sanity, for the flash died just as readily as it had sprung to life.

They _might_ have doubted their sanity, were it not for the large, shadowy figure and the beat of wings that the light had left behind.

Derrick began a slow, circular glide, and waited for the signal which would tell him that his presence was needed.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"So," Onyx confirmed, "Derrick is circling over the ocean above the base waiting for our signal. _How_ exactly will he know when we need him?"

"He cast a spell before he left that will allow us to call him by thought. Not only that, but it will direct him to exactly where we are so that he doesn't have to search for us."

"That's all well and good, but don't we need his spells to get us into Drakken's lair?"

"We did, but since we now know that he can be detected by the Wilgut, I've revised my plan. I have the coordinates for the room I was in when Baron captured the others. We're going to teleport there."

Onyx raised an eyebrow. "I sure hope those coordinates are accurate. If we step through in the wrong place, we'll be crushed by hundreds of tons of water. And even assuming we _could_ survive that, we'll drown before we can reach the surface."

Danielle held up her left hand, displaying her wristwatch for the agent. "No worries there. They've been triple and quadruple checked. I made sure they were accurate so that I could pass them off to either Global Justice or the IPA after all this blows over."

"Well, if they've been confirmed, let me see them."

Danielle accessed the location of Drakken's lair and activated the holographic function on her watch, allowing Onyx to clearly see the numbers. In response, the agent retrieved a six-by-one-inch plate of metal from a cargo pocket and began to fiddle with it.

Had Danielle not known better, she would have thought that Onyx was crazy, but the teen knew that the object was laced with sophisticated circuitry, which the agent was manipulating in order to activate the unit's teleportation capabilities. In a few short moments, the device was ready. Before activating it, however, Onyx handed it to Danielle, returned to her SUV and opened the cargo area. She looked back at the Glider and smiled.

"I know you told me I'd only need my standard gear, but if we're going up against armies and giant lizards, I'm going to need more than a couple of pistols and a knife."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Onyx and Danielle stepped through their pillar of jade light only to be greeted by a different kind of darkness. There had been ambient light and a few security lamps in New York, so at least there had been a little visibility, but here, wherever Danielle's coordinates had taken them, it was so dark that neither individual could see her hand in front of her face.

The IPA agent froze in place, not daring to move lest she step into some sort of pitfall or trip over an unseen object. "I probably should have asked you before we stepped through." She reached up to the shoulder of the vest that comprised her body armor and turned on a flashlight. "Where are we?"

"It's an aircraft hangar. Drakken has no cameras in here, so we should be able to move freely until we reach the rest of the base."

"That should help." Onyx replied, reaching for another light on her belt. "Flashlight?"

"No thanks." Danni closed her right hand and pressed the middle two fingers into her palm. A square of light flared to life on the back of her hand.

"That's neat." Onyx remarked.

"Fiber optics." Replied Danni. "Come on. The exit to the hangar is this way."

Onyx allowed the teen to lead, running herself through a mental check as she fell into step behind her ally: Her right side shoulder-holster held an M9 with a silencer; her left boot held her mousegun; her right boot contained her combat knife; her right upper arm was home to a secondary knife; on the outside of her right thigh, a compact tactical shotgun was held in place by a simple strap and a strip of Velcro; on the outside of her opposite thigh, compact assault rifle was secured in a similar fashion; and held to her body via her vest and utility belt, ammo for each weapon. Her vest also doubled as body armor. The agent was a walking armory. She unholstered her M9 and reminded herself that the weapon's extra ammo, four backup clips, was attached to her right side via her utility belt.

The pair had been walking for perhaps five minutes when Danielle paused.

"What's wrong?"

"They haven't cleaned up yet." Danielle sidestepped, allowing the IPA agent to move forward and examine the indicated mess. What she saw not only surprised, but reviled her.

Throughout her career as an agent of the International Police Agency, Onyx Jen Bedra had seen a lot of bodies. A lot of them. She'd even _made_ her fair share. But this, this was a massacre. Dozens of red- and silver-suited henchmen, along with several dozen well-equipped mercenaries, lay strewn across the floor like so many dolls. Their blood had thickened and was already beginning to harden on the concrete floor. Onyx's growing urge to vomit was suddenly overridden by curiosity as something white caught the beam from Danielle's flashlight. The agent moved forward and bent over to examine the object.

"Are these feathers? They're huge."

"Yeah. They're Shift's. She transformed from a Pegasus to a. . . to something else."

"I thought that when a shapeshifter changed-."

"You're right, but she wanted to put on a show. She was trying to get them to panic, but Baron had already prepped them for us. They were freaked out, but they held their ground."

"Hmph." Onyx turned away from the scene and readied her weapon again. "Well, no good just standing here. Where to?"

Danielle took another step across the floor and was interrupted by a chittering noise coming from below. She paused and looked down to find Rufus at her feet, pointing in the same general direction she had been walking. The Glider bent down and picked up the naked mole rat.

"Rufus? You got away?"

The mole rat chittered some more and pointed again.

Onyx approached Danielle and peered over the teen's shoulder. "So this must be the famous Rufus." The agent grinned. "Lead the way, friend."

Following Rufus's insistent directions, Danni continued across the hangar, skirting the remains of the men as best she could, until she reached the exit door where, unbeknownst to her, Kim and the miniature Monkey Master had stopped earlier. The Glider offered Rufus a position on her right shoulder, which the mole rat gladly accepted. She turned to Onyx. "Through here is the rest of the base, but I've never been beyond the hangar, so from here on out we need to cover our corners. You should lead, since you have a little more experience with this sort of thing."

Onyx nodded and sidled up to the door, which gave a little 'hiss' and rose upward into the wall above. The agent entered to find a wide, metal-lined hallway that extended for fifteen feet before terminating in a 'T' shape. She glanced upward in search of security cameras, but either the devices were too well hidden to be seen, or there weren't any. She looked back at Danni, who gave a thumbs-up.

There were no other doors along the walls here, so they each took one side of the passage – Onyx on the right and Danielle on the left – and moved forward, unafraid of someone entering from either side. When they reached the branching hallways, they paused and listened for footsteps. All was silent.

Onyx peeked left beyond Danni's corner to see more empty hallway that seemed to stretch forever, then turned her head toward her own side. The passage continued for twenty five feet before ending with a second automatic door with a placard above it reading: Generators.

Onyx contemplated entering the room and cutting the power to the rest of the base, but there were several drawbacks to that plan. First, she might not have the time. If Danielle's friends were in danger, she needed to move quickly, and she had no idea how big this base was; she would only be extending her search. Second: She didn't know the layout of the base as well as Baron's men did, and there was no guarantee they didn't have backup measures to counter the problem. Onyx didn't know about Danni, but she hadn't brought her night-vision goggles.

The advantage to the plan, however, was that if there was anyone in the room monitoring the equipment, she could at least incapacitate them to prevent unwanted followers through the lair.

Onyx's final decision was to disregard the room and lean out into the corridor to further assess the other portion of the passage. It was still empty, except for a third door another twenty five feet from her current position. Onyx raised her M9 and stepped boldly into the passage, beginning her mission in earnest. Danielle removed the cover from her wings and stuffed it into one of her suit's cargo pockets, ready to use the feathery limbs as weapons if she needed to. She sidled out into the passage and crept along behind Onyx.

The agent strode forward at a moderate pace, but since her boots had been designed with stealth in mind, she didn't make a sound as she approached the unidentified door. Onyx had expected the portal to open automatically when she got close, but nothing happened, even when the agent found herself standing directly in front of it.

"_Yoo hoo!" _Rufus hopped up and down on Danielle's shoulder. The Glider reached toward a key-pad near the right side of the door, leaving her hand palm-up so that the naked mole rat had a place to stand; the tiny pink Monkey Master skittered down Danni's arm and punched in a series of characters on the device.

The door hissed and rose upward.

Onyx raised an eyebrow, and the corner of her mouth quirked upward in a rare grin. "So that's what you've been doing for the past couple of hours, huh?"

Rufus gave a little mole rat smile and nodded. _"Uh-huh!"_

The IPA agent's grin faded and she raised her sidearm again as she stepped into the detainment area. Danielle followed, watching the woman's back as the two of them made their way further into the base. They encountered no opposition, which told Onyx that Baron's security posture was low at the moment. Not only had he lost plenty of men during the battle earlier, but he hadn't expected aid to arrive so soon, and certainly not within hours of Danielle's escape.

Which, in turn, informed her that the millionaire was indeed ignorant about the government's teleportation technology, as Danni had suggested. Considering the fact that even Baron, with his extensive network of contacts, hadn't discovered the secret of teleportation, meant the ability was still exclusive to United States government and IPA agents. Good.

Onyx pushed the thought from her mind. No distractions. Not now. She studied the hallway as she stalked forward, noting that while there were no visible doors, there were two other passages that intersected with the one in which she stood. _'Those other hallways must be where the entrances to the _actual_ cells are located.'_

Rufus hopped from Danielle's shoulder and ran across the floor to the first intersecting passage. He turned left and disappeared around the corner, then reappeared a second later and chittered. Onyx followed.

The agent adjusted her grip on the M9 and stepped around the corner. No one greeted her or attempted to kill her. She continued to follow Ron's small pink companion, noting that there were doors in this area, four of them total, totaling two on each side of the hallway. She looked back and noted that there were another four across the intersection in the hallway. If the layout further in was the same, that made a total of sixteen cells within the detainment area.

Rufus's feet made hardly any sound as they made contact with the floor, but Onyx could still hear the subtle clicking sound his nails made on the metal surface. When the noise stopped, she glanced down to see that he had stopped in front of the second door on the left. She approached the portal and allowed Rufus the same privilege Danni had: a place to stand on her palm. Rufus activated the keypad and the door's lock disengaged with a dull 'clunk.'

Onyx turned to Danielle and jerked her head toward the door, indicating she would wait while the teen checked on whoever was being detained inside. The girl adjusted her wings in the equivalent of a shrug and stepped toward the cell.

She opened the door to see Roy sitting in a corner of the room, watching the portal with keen interest. His eyes brightened when he saw his rescuer. Danni approached the young technopath and knelt on the floor next to him.

"You all right?" She laid a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I will be, just as soon as I can get rid of this queasiness. How did you escape?"

"Karen refreshed her spells so I could get away and bring back some help. Rufus led Onyx and me here so we could free you."

"Really? How long have I been here?"

"You went down a little over an hour and a half ago."

Roy closed his eyes in thought and a look of confusion passed over his face. "Oh, right. I remember now. I'll explain later."

Danni extended a hand and helped Roy to his feet. The youth swayed a little and leaned against the wall.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine. Once we get going, the nausea should wear off."

"Good. Let's go get the others."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Still thirty feet from the door to the main atrium, Rufus could sense Ron's presence, but he was still unable to reach into the Monkey Master's mind. There was no way to keep him from following Baron's orders to engage Kim in open combat. Thus, rather than waste time trying to communicate with Ron, Rufus mentally scanned the area surrounding the two combatants to find that every one of Baron's, Drakken's, Dementor's and Señior Senior's men was gathered around to watch the fight unfold, not to mention both Wilgut and Monkey Fist's simian ninjas. There were too many people in the room to simply walk in and engage them.

From his place on Roy's left shoulder, Rufus leaped to the floor in front of the others and hopped up and down again, jabbering all the while. Rather than risk stepping on the mole rat and killing him, they all stopped.

Onyx, who was leading the group, asked, "What is it?"

Rufus pointed directly upward.

Danielle cocked her head to the side, the gesture seeming rather alien while she was wearing her helmet. She looked at Onyx and said, "He wants us to bring Derrick down here."

Rufus folded his 'arms' and nodded.

The woman shook her head. "How did you know about – nevermind. The Wilgut will be able to sense him, won't they?"

"Yes," Karen remarked, "but they may have already sensed that I've escaped my cell. They might be ready. Having an extra dragon with us isn't a bad idea."

Matthew cleared his throat. "There's a problem with that. Derrick will be too large for this hallway in his dragon form. We have to backtrack to the hangar to guide him here."

Rufus gave a small _'harumph'_ and a mole rat's growl from the floor. He waved his arms and started chittering again.

Roy caught on to the mole rat's plan. "If he can phase through walls like we did, it won't matter. We call him down here and hold just out of visual range of the base while we barge in. When we need him, he can phase through the walls and join us. Even if the Wilgut notice him before he arrives, they won't be able to do anything about it."

"Wait," Shift interjected, pointing toward the door, "what if that room isn't big enough either?"

Rufus hopped twice and closed his eyes. Onyx heard a voice in her head that wasn't hers. _"It has to be." _It said. _"Baron, Drakken, Senior, and Monkey Fist are proud and haughty men. They will want grandeur and glory, and a place large enough to accommodate it. Already I can sense that they and all of their leftover forces are inside, as are Kim and Ron. I needn't tell you to be ready for a fight."_

Rufus opened his eyes and nodded at Onyx, who turned to the others. "Don't worry. The room's plenty big enough. Shall we go and greet our hosts?"

Even as she accompanied her friends toward their final struggle, Danielle began a mental conversation with the shadow dragon far above, and Rufus retook his place on Roy's shoulder.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Trapped.

He was trapped.

There had been a moment, a single forever-second when he'd had the ability to keep the entirety of his will from collapsing around him. But even as long as it had lasted, the moment had passed too quickly, and he was plucked from his own consciousness, even as another presence leaped in to fill the void.

That was what it felt like, at least, but Ron knew better. His own desires were there, but they were being overshadowed by something else, suppressed and twisted until he was performing actions he knew were not his own.

He had almost had it. There had been a moment after the collapse when he was able to reach out to Kim's mind, but the binding-other (as he had come to know it) wrestled his thoughts back into submission and buried them once more.

He had to break whatever bond was holding him down before he could be forced to hurt someone in earnest. He had to dig himself out of the rubble.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

The door _'whooshed'_ open to a large half-dome of steel and reinforced glass, but all Onyx could see was a large crowd of henchmen and mercenaries. She might have regretted the decision to barge into a room full of them, but only if she hadn't come with some serious backup.

Several of the hired hands turned to greet what they had thought was more of their own, but once they noticed the M9 pointed in their direction, they moved aside and allowed Onyx, along with the others, to move into the room.

Apparently, Baron had planned on forcing Kim and Ron to fight, but whether to death, or simply until one of them or the other submitted, was unclear. At the center of the group of henchmen, a large area had been left open, and the two human members of Team Possible were standing opposite one another. They were surrounded by Baron's men, as well as the two Wilgut, who stood in human form at the forward edge of Kim's half of the clearing.

Onyx stopped directly between both Kim and Ron, hoping that the gesture would prevent all hell from immediately breaking loose. The position also gave her a good view of her surroundings. A glance was all she needed.

The atrium was about two hundred feet across, and since it was a large hemisphere of steel and reinforced glass, it was a hundred feet tall at its apex. Almost directly across from where she and the others had entered, there was a portal marked with a large '1', followed on the right by two more marked with both a '2' and a '3.' They were apparently submarine docks. Fifty feet to the right of the last dock (and about seventy-five feet to the right of where she had entered) was another door, which undoubtedly led to other portions of the compound, though Onyx cared more about where she was standing than what she couldn't currently see.

A catwalk circumvented the room nine feet above the floor, with a twenty-foot-long extension that supported a large control panel, which was being manned by none other than Doctor Drakken. The extension was situated directly across from the third submarine dock.

More troubling than the scientist standing above, however, was the presence of more mercenaries. Several dozen of them stood at intervals along the catwalk, each cradling his tranquilizer with a predatory glint in his eye. Onyx also spotted Monkey Fist's monkey ninjas interspersed among the men; some of them hung from the catwalk's railing by their tails, while others simply stood atop the metal walkway near the men they had been trained to fight with.

A third of the atrium's wall, the portion farthest from where she stood, was entirely made of reinforced glass, which extended upward to include the apex of the dome. All that could be seen beyond was darkness. Derrick was certainly keeping his distance, assuming he had already come close enough to join his comrades.

Onyx became aware of a familiar sensation in the back of her mind and turned to her left. She pointed her sidearm at the nearest mercenary. "Don't even think about it, pal. You touch the trigger on that weapon and I'll put a round through your eye."

The man gaped at the agent.

Onyx turned again, this time to her right, and though her weapon was still trained on the first man, she pointed at a second with her index finger. "You, too."

Several of the henchmen and mercenaries shifted, preparing to move forward at the same time, but a voice cut through the shuffle.

"Wait a moment, if you please. I would like to speak with this woman before you detain her."

The men relaxed.

Onyx lowered her weapon and turned toward the glass portion of the dome to find a distinguished-looking man, as well as a collection of rather interesting-looking individuals, standing on a raised portion of flooring. Apparently, the space where she stood was not in the exact center of the room, for the other third of the floor space, which was indeed raised to accommodate a large machine, was situated so that those standing upon it could see the fight below. The individuals described as Shego and Dr. Vellick were not present.

The agent studied the man who had obviously just ordered the mercenaries to stand down. "You must be Walter Baron." Her expression gave nothing away, and her voice remained level.

Baron likewise kept his composure, despite the alarm he must have been feeling. "I am. Who are you, exactly? I'm certain that no one within the IPA knew of my plans, not to mention the fact that Miss Possible's companion left here only a bit more than two hours ago."

Onyx took note of the fact that Baron had willingly given his identity, which told her two things. First, he didn't consider her a threat, because second, he didn't plan on letting her leave. Not alive, anyway. She pushed the thought away. "Well, you're right on one count. We _didn't_ know about your plans. You are wrong about the girl, though. She called me right after she left here. We were prepped to crash the rest of your party an hour after that."

A look of curiosity passed over Baron's face, but he quickly concealed it. "Is that so? Then do you mind explaining how you got here so quickly?"

"Actually, I do mind. You don't have the clearance for that information. I'll tell what you do have, though: the right to remain silent."

Baron cocked his head ever so slightly to the side. "You think it's that easy, do you? Simply walk in and arrest me?"

"Well, I hoped. But you maniacs never give me a break any more. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." Onyx sighed. She was about to say something else when the person standing next to Baron caught her eye. "Rick Owens?"

Walter raised an eyebrow and stared at Onyx for a moment before turning to his bodyguard. "Do you know this woman?"

Rick chuckled. "Actually, I do." Grinning, he turned his attention to the agent below. "Yeah, Bedra, it's me. Long time, huh? By the way, how's the old ticker doing? Played opossum lately?"

Onyx ignored the taunt, but her eyes hardened at Rick's question. Before she could retort, Baron interjected, "Possum?"

Rick laughed. "Oh, yeah, this one has some _very_ unique talents! Get this, she can actually slow her heart so that she appears dead! Problem is, she tried it too many times, and she damaged her heart!"

Baron looked back at the IPA agent. "Really? Then I suppose I can't simply have you killed after all. You would make a fine addition to my army of clones."

Onyx raised her weapon and pointed it at Baron. Rick's grin faded as he bristled at the threat. "I don't think so, Baron. Your entire scheme is done. I'm here to get Team Possible and their friends out, not to mention get rid of you. I don't care if I have to arrest you or shoot you, but you aren't leaving here a free man."

Rick interposed himself between Onyx and Baron. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"And what are you going to do, Rick? We both know I can knock you on your ass any day of the week, and you look a little beat up already. What happened? Did you try too hard and kick yourself in the face?"

Baron placed a hand on Rick's shoulder and gently moved the Kung Fu master aside. "Enough! Both of you!" He stepped forward so that he could once again see Onyx. He pointed at the agent and frowned. "Either you submit, or I force you to. I warn you, I am not a patient man, and I don't relish asking more than once."

Danielle and the others tensed.

Onyx began to suppress a grin, determined to maintain her appearance as a hardened agent, but then she brushed the urge aside. She let out a low chuckle. "You're not patient, huh?" She chuckled some more. "That's a trait we have in common!"

Baron didn't even bother to hide the confusion on his face. "Then you understand me when I say that I'm not in a sporting mood."

This time Onyx laughed, a sound that, though meant to represent happiness and joy, sounded more like the embodiment of psychosis and lunacy. She allowed the M9 to drop to her side. "_Please _forgive me if I don't take you seriously, Mr. Baron, but I've gone up against much, _much_ worse than you." The woman's expression turned deadly serious. "I've fought ancient, cursed kings and their hellish minions; I've been shot to death by mercenaries, and then resurrected by some freaky gemstone; I've been cut open and studied; I've been experimented on; and I've been tortured nearly to death… multiple times." She raised her weapon again. "_You_ don't intimidate me."

Baron's eyebrows furrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but Onyx cut him off. "Stop. Don't even say it. No clone will have my experience because experiences aren't genetic. You aren't making a copy of me."

Baron faltered for a moment as he realized that the agent had just _read his mind_.


	15. Test of Wills

**HUM HO, WHADDAYA KNOW! I STILL EXIST! I KNOW I'VE MADE YOU WAIT QUITE A WHILE FOR THIS, AND I'M SORRY. I HAD A STALKER FOR A WHILE, AND YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED AT HOW THAT LITTLE INCONVENIENCE CAN SAP AWAY ONE'S CREATIVE MOJO. ANYWAY, ENJOY THE NEXT CHAPTER OF A GATHERING OF HEROES!**

**OH, YEAH, AND KIM POSSIBLE AND RELATED CHARACTERS ARE NOT MINE. HOWEVER, WALTER BARON, RICK OWENS, ONYX BEDRA, KAREN BECKWIT, SHIFT, MATTHEW, ROY, THE DARKUT CONCEPT, THE WILGUT CONCEPT, SHIFT'S VARIOUS FORMS (EXCEPT THE PEGASUS, OF COURSE), AND THE PLOTLINE FOR THIS STORY ARE MINE! :D**

**ENJOY!**

**CHAPTER 15: Test of Wills**

Onyx had regained her previously unshakeable composure. Perhaps she hadn't lost it in the first place. Nonetheless, she began to speak again. "You know, Baron, you have every reason to be as nervous as you are right now." When the man continued to stare ate her in confusion, she continued. "You didn't know? You're watching me. It might be more accurate to say that your attention is focused on me, and for that reason, I can perceive your thoughts and emotions."

Silence engulfed the room for a few seconds as everyone processed the implications of what this woman was saying. As long as an individual was consciously paying attention to her, she could openly read his or her mind.

'_Well, that would certainly explain how she knew my men were preparing to fire at her.'_ Baron thought with dismay. Unfortunately for him, that little trick would also make it more difficult for him to capture her. He would have to use sheer overwhelming force to take her down, which would be much easier if she hadn't bothered to free Kimberly's friends before trying to stop him.

She had, however, and so the task would be all the more difficult. Baron blinked, and his eyes were focused and calculating once more. "Rick referred to you as 'Bedra.' Would that be your first or last name?"

Onyx's eyes narrowed. "You certainly are persistent, aren't you? Even your lack of patience hasn't kept you from asking me twice about my identity, but I suppose, since you're not leaving here unless you're in cuffs or a body bag, I'll tell you. It's my last name. My first name is Onyx."

It didn't take a genius to surmise that the woman's parents had named her for the color of her hair, and her eyes. Now that he took a better look, Baron could make out that the agent's irises were also dark as night. The fact that he couldn't distinguish between her irises and her pupils was somehow unsettling, but he brushed the feeling aside and resumed his conversation with the woman.

"Well then, Miss Bedra, how can I convince you to lay down your weapons and surrender?"

Onyx feigned thought. "Hmm, I thought you were simply persistent, but it looks like I gave you too much credit. You're too _dense_ to realize that I am _not_ going to surrender. Not to you, not to your monkeys, and certainly not to your demented geckos over there."

Karen snickered at the insult, and the Wilgut tensed. The younger of the two began to step forward, but the elder held him back. Karen fixed her attention on them, while Onyx turned to regard the two half-wyverns with a look of indifference. "What's the matter? Did I hurt your feelings?"

The older Wilgut crossed his arms and spoke. "You speak even more carelessly than your dragon friend, human. Angering us will not make your troubles easier, nor will it weaken us. I warn you to tread lightly."

"Why? Are you afraid I'll step on your toes? I'm not _that_ heavy."

The Wilgut frowned. "You continue to jest at our expense, but are you prepared for the consequences? I will spill your innards myself."

It was Onyx's turn to frown, but before she could reply, she was interrupted by Baron. "That privilege, I shall allow, Riekin, but you must leave enough of her for a DNA sample."

_After all, it wasn't absolutely necessary to keep her alive. It simply would have been fun._

The Wilgut grinned.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Kim watched as Danielle's friend, now identified as Onyx, entered the room and interposed herself between the two Team Possible members. The woman seemed almost happy to anger her opponents, and Kim briefly wondered of the agent wasn't completely mad. The woman's laughter several minutes later only reinforced the idea.

It was only after Onyx had once again pointed her weapon at Baron that Kim realized: the agent wasn't crazy. Not completely, at least. The laughter was a ploy, a tactic to unnerve the men surrounding her and her friends. A quick glance sufficed to prove that the stratagem was working; the henchmen and mercenaries shifted uncomfortably on their feet and exchanged nervous glances.

But, Kim realized, that wasn't all. A certain gleam in Onyx's eyes bespoke another motive behind her banter and her games… it was as if the woman wanted Baron and his men to attack her. Kim's ruminations were interrupted by a familiar presence within her mind. She sought out the source and immediately welcomed it.

'_Ron?'_

'_KP, are you okay?'_

'_I'm fine, but what about you? Are you-?'_

'_I hate to make you worry, but I'm not okay. I know Baron told you about the Nano-bots, but there's a side effect he doesn't know about.'_

'_What do you mean? What side effect?'_

'_I don't have much time to explain. They're suppressing my free will, forcing me to obey Baron's commands, but they're also messing with the signals in my brain that control my emotions and my free will. It's especially interfering with my anger. I was angry at Baron for trying to hurt you, and that was the first emotion the Nano-bots perceived. They latched onto it in order to suppress it, but now that rage is growing out of control. The part of me that's trapped, the part you're talking to, is keeping it in check, but not for long. When my concentration fails, and it will, I will become a danger to everyone in this room. I won't be able to control my actions or my rage, and I'll attack anyone and anything I see.'_

Kim started to panic. _'How do I fix it? Is there anything I can do?'_

'_Maybe, but that would mean deactivating the Nano-bots.'_

'_But Vellick is still in the infirmary. Matthew injured him pretty badly.'_

'_Then you won't have access to his remote.'_

'_Ron?'_

He didn't answer.

'_Ron, tell me what to do. How do I fix it?'_

'_I…I don't know Kim. But you have to tell Rufus what's happening. He can temporarily block my Mystical Monkey Power. At least then I have a smaller chance of harming someone.'_

Kim didn't know how to reply. Without his power, Ron would have no way to protect himself if he was overwhelmed. If either Wilgut or even a large number of men attacked him while he was in his frenzy, he could easily be killed. He would be as human as she was.

He apparently sensed the tenor of her thoughts, for he answered, _'Don't worry about me. Remember, I still have the rest of my training. I'm not as clumsy as I used to be.'_

'_But-'_

'_No buts. It's the only way right now, Kim. I know you're worried, but you have to trust me.' _He wrapped Kim in a mental embrace that made her feel safer than she ever had before.

And then he was gone.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Kim wasn't a bad multi-tasker, so even though she had been holding a mental conversation with Ron, she was well aware of why he pulled away when he did. Things were about to become very chaotic.

As soon as Riekin had been given permission to kill, he turned to his fellow Wilgut and gave a curt, "Ayoc, hold the Darkut at bay." Immediately after, he began to shift, and Karen wasn't far behind. The second Wilgut followed the lead of the first, and even as he began his transformation, Kim seized the opening to dart toward her friends. They would all need to work together to take down the men surrounding them, and the cheerleader fully intended to help. First, however, she needed to contact Rufus. As she skidded to a halt next to Matthew, she mentally shouted the mole rat's name.

In the meantime, she and the others prepared for battle. Kim adopted one of her sixteen Kung Fu poses, while Danni assumed a different martial arts stance. Roy's posture suggested a more improvised form of self-defense, but Kim had no doubt it was just as effective as her own. Matthew reached into a pocket and retrieved a clear plastic vial with a colorless liquid, then immediately twisted the top off of it and drank the contents. Onyx, as she watched her new opponent transform, used her free right hand to unsheathe a combat knife, which she held at the ready as a secondary weapon. Shift remained motionless, watching her surroundings with keen interest.

Baron watched Kim and the others begin their preparations for battle and decided it was time to engage the rest of his remaining army. He turned to the genetically altered human next to him. "Monkey Fist, would you order your ninjas into the battle, please?" As the Monkey master bowed and began to shout orders, Baron called out to the mercenaries and henchmen gathered throughout the atrium. "As for the rest of you! Get to work!"

Understanding the order they had just been given, the men readied their respective weapons and lunged forward.

Shift, meanwhile, hadn't reacted to her surroundings in any way since joining Onyx at the center of the atrium. However, upon hearing Baron's order to the rest of his men, the shapeshifter crouched to the floor.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Onyx's hand tightened around her knife as the Wilgut in front of her finished his transformation. The entire process, from Baron giving the beast permission to kill her, to the moment it looked down at her with its snarling mouth full of dagger-like teeth, had taken perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds. Plenty long enough to give her a chance to attack the shifting, heaving form in front of her. Her hesitation to approach it, however, had cost her the opportunity to wound the creature.

Now she was stuck fighting it head on, and her chances did _not _look good.

Riekin growled, lunged forward, and snapped his jaws shut on empty air as Onyx managed to dodge out of his path. The Wilgut opened his massive wings for balance as he reared up and pulled his weight backwards in an attempt to stop short. A quick flick of his tongue was enough to tell him that the woman had dodged to his right. He turned to seek her out.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Karen felt her body 'settle' as she finished her transformation, and promptly assessed her surroundings. She could hear people scuffling behind her, but her primary focus was stopping Riekin from killing Onyx.

She spotted the wyvern as he finished his change and darted forward to snap at the agent. She allowed herself a half-second of relief as the woman dodged, and then coiled her muscles in preparation to leap forward. Ayoc stepped forward to bar her path, and the Darkut watched with mixed feelings of rage and alarm as Rick appeared behind the agent and seized her in a choke hold. The bounty hunter intended to hold her in place long enough to allow Riekin to kill her! The older wyvern didn't hesitate to strike at the helpless agent. Before Onyx could even utilize her knife or her sidearm, the reptile hissed and lunged again.

Once again, he failed. The Wilgut was thrown to his left as a snarling white blur collided with his shoulders and sent him hurtling into the group of advancing men beyond. The creature snapped at his neck as Riekin rolled over several of the mercenaries, both crushing them with his bulk and bowling them over with his flapping wings as he fought to protect his throat.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Shift had been watching and waiting ever since she entered the atrium with Onyx. She knew that pandemonium would erupt at some point, and choosing when to shift was key, due to the fact that changing forms left her temporarily vulnerable. And although she had a huge repertoire of forms she could use, she would only have time to choose one, so it would have to be effective. There was one form which she knew would be especially useful, but she was hesitant to use it.

Her mind was made up for her when the Wilgut began shifting. She also heard Baron's additional order to his men, telling them to engage the others, and knew that her decision to use her supreme form had been the correct one. The shapeshifter crouched to the floor and began to change.

_To be hinest, this isn't where I wanted to end the chapter, but the next part will be tricky-sticky unless I end this part here and start with a new point of view in the next chapter. Thanks for understanding! And stay tuned for the next part of A Gathering of Heroes!_


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